THEY CAN dohard things

e have just returned from an incredible surf trip to a beautiful little town in the Eastern Cape. While we were there, one of my 13-yearold twins, Ryan, had to work through a tough but characterbuilding experience.

One morning we had taken all the surfboards and wetsuits down to a friend’s house,

Wwhich was close to the beach, so the kids could grab their stuff whenever they wanted to hit the water. The boys went off to a nearby town for a bit while I went down to the sand with a friend.

A few hours later, when they kids wanted to surf, Ryan discovered that his board wasn’t with the others. It had been forgotten back at our chalet. He left his brand-new wetsuit with a friend near the surf spot and decided to skate the kilometre and a half back to our chalet to get his board. When he got there the house was locked, so he had to climb through a window. On his way back, skating with his board, he fell twice. When he got back to the rocks, everyone (and his wetsuit) was gone. He started to search for them and it was at this point that I bumped into him as I came off the beach. I could tell that he was on the brink of tears.

I joined the search and after a while we found that his wetsuit had been left with some other friends who were sitting, hidden from plain sight, further down the beach. Ryan breathed a huge sigh of relief, suited up and paddled out to backline.

When Ryan told me the whole story later, I knew he had been through something hard, navigated a range of emotions, got a little banged up and had to dig deep, but he had done it, and I was immensely proud of his courage, initiative and problem-solving.

At this point you may be questioning my parenting but I have been very intentional in developing these skills in my kids from a young age. And school provides a great opportunity for our kids to do this, but we are going to have to play our part. Mostly that involves stepping back. This year there will be teachers your child doesn’t like, tests they might not do well in, sports teams they might not make, lunches and PE kits they are going to forget at home. To develop initiative, grit and problem-solving skills in your child, here are a few things you can do:

• Don’t come to their rescue too quickly. A forgotten PE kit provides a great opportunity for your child to have a tough conversation with a coach, to think of how to solve the problem (borrow from lost property?) or to feel the pain of sitting out while his friends have fun on the field.

• Make home a safe place to talk about mistakes and navigate “failure”. Let them talk without jumping in with solutions. When things go wrong, allow your child to process what happened, how they could have perhaps dealt with the situation better and figure out a way forward.

• Don’t try to fix everything. You don’t have to email the teacher every time your child has a bad day or intervene every time there is a friendship spat. These are invaluable opportunities to develop important conflict-resolution skills your child needs for adulthood.

• Treat your children like they are competent and you believe in them. Wrapping them in cotton wool will breed anxiety and stunt emotional growth. Giving them freedom to try, fail, pick themselves up and keep going is not easy – but it is an incredible gift to your child.

And I can pretty much guarantee that, like I did that day at the beach, you will realise that your child can do hard things. And that when life throws him a curveball, he has creative ideas and capacity to remove whatever obstacles are standing between him and the perfect tube. *

The school year might have just started, but are your children tired and lacking energy? Do they appear to be negative and irritable, are battling to concentrate, aren’t sleeping well or have lost their confidence?

Don’t underestimate the demands placed on school-aged children. It is enormous, and very often they are not appropriately supported to meet these high demands – leaving them exhausted both physically and emotionally.

Adequate nutrition is one effective way that you as a parent can help your child. Good food, and the right amount of food, goes a long way to support a child and help them to cope, thrive, excel and feel good about themselves. But, what does this translate to when packing lunchboxes and preparing meals?

It helps to understand – on a scientific level – how much children need to eat. Compared with an adult, a child’s food requirement is close to double an adult’s when calculated per kilogram of body weight. This is a huge volume of food every 24 hours, but it is needed to ensure and support the following: Survival, growth, concentration and activity.

So how do you ensure your child eats enough despite often being reluctant to eat?

Routine. Your child should be consuming nutrition up to six times a day and every two to three hours. This should include three meals (breakfast, lunch and supper) plus three snacks. This routine will depend on your child’s school and sport schedule, and needs to be structured and strategic. No two children are the same.

The bulk of their nutrition should come from their three meals, with the snacks topping them up to see them through to the next meal. Children are often given snacks that are too big and/or at the incorrect times, resulting in a reduced appetite at mealtimes.

Be targeted with what food is offered. A child needs to be given specific guidance on what to eat and when. Set strict boundaries and avoid offering “buffets” of food.

The one fundamental principle that must be applied – for most of the time