Tag Archives: practice

How to get washboard abs – or a gut

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Has it ever occurred to you that you get washboard abs the same way you get a gut?

Both are attained by practice. What you do repeatedly affects the shape of your body – whether arduous ab workouts, or consuming more calories than your body needs.

What does this have to do with parenting?

It is commonly assumed that practice is the pathway to excellence. It is. But it is also the path to mediocrity and failure. What you practice, and how you practice determine which path you’re on.

Many young children are on the path to having a gut before they even lose their baby teeth. They’re practicing a pattern of nutrition and exercise that will result in obesity in all but a few children. Parents (or those who act in their stead) are the chief influences of early childhood nutrition and exercise. We are the ones who establish patterns of practice – patterns which can lead to health or disease.

Practice makes (almost) permanent

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The adage goes: Practice makes perfect. That’s true, if you’re practicing the right skill in the right way. More accurately, Practice makes any habit (almost) permanent. Practice can make a flawed habit just a deeply ingrained as a perfect habit.

If you meet an adult who, since early childhood has held forks and spoons in a fist (rather than with three fingers in a pencil-like grip) and ask him to hold his utensils in a standard way, it will feel awkward and difficult to adopt the new hold because years of practice has made his fist-grasp feel normal.

Manners of speech are little different. If you meet an adult who has a verbal habit of using ums and ahs to connect parts of speech, and ask her to speak without those audible pauses, it will feel to her like learning how to speak all over again. By constant practice, she has trained herself to use those sounds without ever thinking about it.

In virtually everything we do, practice makes almost permanent. For this reason, learning early to hold a fork in a particular way, or to speak without ums and ahs pays dividends for years to come. Practice can make perfect, but only if it is practicing a valuable activity with thoughtfulness and excellence.

Resolve: Human beings make purposeful decisions

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Every human being makes purposeful decisions. We choose one thing instead of another, and these choices have consequences. For example, parents can choose to read with their children, or choose to put them in front of a television. This choice has significant consequences for a child in learning to be human. In the context of a shared book, a child learns to communicate by interpreting words, gestures and body language from the reader, and expressing himself in words (if he is old enough to speak), and through his own gestures and body language.

In addition to learning to interact with others, he is being initiated into a way of being in the world. If reading a book together is an isolated encounter, the impact is not nearly so great as if it is repeated; hence the primacy of repetition. Both the single encounter and the repeated practice of reading books are part of initiation. Each communicates something about the value of literature, words and interpersonal communication; resolved repetition shows that we deliberately cherish something.

Reflection: The unexamined life is not worth living

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Socrates famously stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And yet, the unexamined life is still lived. We can reflect on the relative value of different activities and resolve to make repeated change. The power of reflection is vividly evident in the practice of athletes. It is possible by the force of great resolve and faithful repetition to train for a marathon. The person who sets a running schedule – and adheres to it – can prepare for a race she has never run in her life. And yet, if she does not reflect on her training, her resolved repetition may only serve to establish bad habits. Great runners reflect on their stride. Are they running on their heels? Are they altering their gait as they descend hills? This discipline of reflection is essential to learning to run well. If the unexamined life is not worth living, neither is the unexamined race worth running.

Reflective parenting is the discipline of asking those difficult questions. My repeated actions always represent what I value. But do they embody what I want to value? Where do I need to break out of a rut, or establish a new routine that will be good for my family? One of the most valuable questions for parents is whether a particular approach to parenting achieves its desired outcome. Some parents, desiring their children to clearly understand right and wrong, are harsh in correcting an inappropriate action. Their intentions are quite honorable: they want kids who know and choose what is right. But their actions, sadly, can have quite the opposite effect. If a father yells, “Don’t lie to me!” does it promote honest confession and repentance?  If the same father calmly but firmly asks, “Is that the truth?” is the child more or less likely to admit his fault? Taking time to reflect on the practice of parenting makes all the difference in the world. The resolve may be identical. The reflective resolve, used repeatedly, will produce a decidedly different outcome.