Here is a little secret…as parents, we have made probably half of the mistakes in the book, and the other half we’ll probably encounter in the next 18 years. I am not trying to berate us, but here is something I learned quickly about kids: there is a lot of grey, and not a lot of black and white. Each kid is different. Each situation is unique. But often our parenting does not reflect this.

When Anibel started climbing we learn a few things: 1. she has no fear of heights (major bonus) 2. she is quite competitive and 3. we can push or challenge her and she responds well to it.

Fast forward 2 years – Abishai is trying to climb everything in sight so we harness him up and let him loose on the wall.  And within 30 seconds we learned a few more things: 1. he is afraid of heights. 2. his sense of failure overrides his competitiveness and 3. if we push too hard he shuts down.

We’d encourage, urge, prod him on towards making it one hold higher on the wall and he would come apart at the seams.  Maybe you, like us, have already dug a hole with one of your kids and now you are wondering if you can get back out again.  I don’t have the answer to that.  But here is what we did: we stepped back and embraced the fact he was different than his sister and our approach to parenting him would likewise need to be different. We lavished him with praise for even the slightest success on the wall. All of us cheering like a squad of teenage girls every time he went one higher.  And my husband invested time into going to the gym with just Abishai, focusing on having fun, not neccesarily climbing.  If that meant wrestling on the mats or teaching him to somersault- then that is what it meant.

Amidst all our parenting blunders we observed one other thing- sometimes we needed to give him a little room.  And let his sister be a friend.  When he is down and out- there is no one quite like his sister to get him smiling again…and we hope that never changes.

Slowly, Abishai’s attitude about climbing began to change.  Soon he was asking to go to the gym. Somewhere in the midst of those “daddy times”, Abishai announced to me (or rather asked), “Mom, can I go to the top of the wall today?” “Sure!” And he did. He headed up and never looked back.