American kids – especially kids in Democrat-afflicted states like Maine – are not being taught self-reliance, mental strength, critical thinking, crisis management, resourcefulness, and confidence – let alone “grace under pressure.” They need to be.
Growing up in Maine, educated by seasoned WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam era vets and highly motivated, high confidence, can-do teachers like my mother, grandmother, aunt, and those who taught by example, we all learned.
What did we learn? We learned that life is hard, but hard is good – because it forces you to understand what you are made of, what it means to overcome adversity and doubt with resolve and discipline, with hard work, trying new things, falling, failing, and losing to learn, over time how to get up, succeed, and win.
We learned anything can happen on any given day, but how the day ends is on us. Did you anticipate, live to expectations, lean into it, keep your chin up – or not?
Did you prepare yourself, do the homework, look around corners, imagine what could be, and ready yourself? Did you think ahead to think backward, anticipate, reverse engineer success, make good choices, avoid bad ones, to get on track?
Did you think about how your choices affect others? How good choices empower you to empower them, to empower others, and how bad choices disappoint, disempower, cause regret, waste time, a need to recover, delay your growth?
What else? We learned we were good at some stuff, not as good at other stuff. Languages were hard for me, so I took more of them, learned, used them later.
In sports, I could run but was terrible at basketball, not sure about football, so signed up and played, learned new lessons, used those lessons later in life.
In scouts, we learned self-confidence in the woods, on the water, with a rifle, knife, survival, how to anticipate weather, cook on a fire, start it with one match or none, first aid, how to do tough stuff, like ourselves better for it. That created a lifetime of habits and served our generation well.
We learned to keep our eyes open, what the military calls “situational awareness,” a 360-degree perspective, physical, mental, and thinking about how others think, so you are aware of what may emerge ahead.
We learned nature is a great teacher. How? We were not allowed to disappear into a television, or what today would be social media, ignore the Great Outdoors. We were literally shoed outdoors, told to be home by supper.
So, we learned to trust ourselves, explore for the sake of it, wonder and discover, watch animals, play pickup, climb trees, fish and canoe, catch tadpoles and frogs, build forts, dam streams, sled to exhaustion, cycle, run, ski, and be content to be.
By contrast, what do kids today tend to do? Trying to be like others, thinking life is not about hard work or getting out what you put in, but gaming a system, getting rich by listening to YouTube boobs, attendance not needed. Spoiler alert: If you do not show up, the world goes on without you. You show up, you can change it.
Kids today – far too often – are shown the “easy way,” encouraged to see themselves as part of a group, history unimportant, just get through, feel sorry for themselves. No growth comes of that. They default to emotion not reason, indulge grievance, and avoid hard work – because we have not taught them the value.
Where does that lead? To helplessness, lack of self-reliance, poor skills, low respect for work, lots of following and conforming, excuses and anxiety, less leading, originality, entrepreneurship, mental toughness, discipline, and confidence.
Bottom line: In all we do, each day that we awake and interact with young people, especially those of an age still soaking up what they see, we need to be – what we know we are because of those who taught us how to be who we are. We need to teach confidence not helplessness. It is an intergenerational mission – ours now.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
The left knows you can’t control people if they think for themselves. That also goes for making folks dependent on government. Dems are counting that mindless citizens will vote their way and will use anger and fear to do the work. Two way dialog no longer exists and when logic and facts overwhelms the left, they resort to name calling and violence. Unfortunately the mainstream media is feeding into this for those who cannot or will not think for themselves. This is proof that indoctrination education works and the dumbing down of America continues.
It was not broke but had to be fixed,out with old proven winners, in with the mish mash of new progressive ideas. The result is a mish mash in the head that only can be fixed by bringing the proven winners back. Attendance, attention, discipline and demanding the best. No excuses and giving medals to all. Please, no more graduating fifth graders, eighth if lucky .
Great article. Thank you.
brilliant essay and true
Hands On skills
Field trips
WEX
OJT
Games, Tests
Puzzles for Mind
ALL can Help
When people understand what craftsmanship is all about – and the ideas form about principles being part of the work they do – it promotes a healthy. idea toward life. A sense of purpose is established, a code of conduct develops and the qualities of good character become part of the Faith we have – that connects with a free society. Those are the things that define what Resourcefulness can accomplish and there is. no actual alternative .There is genuine interested in the betterment of life – it leads to what is right and good and admirable.. Teaching confidence is the course to follow RBC – it is something that is needed. and is as meaningful as it gets !
My husband grew up in a logging family, so learned early how to be independent. I learned from him, and we raised our five kids with only minimum supervision. They learned how to solve their own problems and are multi talented adults. These helicopter parents will have to take care of their kids for a lifetime instead of raising adults who can take care of themselves. A big part of this is displaying the values they need to be successful.
I agree with everything in this article except for the advice to keep your chin up. That makes it too easy for our adversaries to sneak punch us and that is the only kind they’d ever dare to try!
teach the Bible.
My son has a large family. Six children. When they were becoming teenagers and wanted a car of their own, he told them they would have to get a job and earn half the money, and he would put in the other half. Every one of them got jobs, and earned their money. Every one of them went to community college, which they paid for. And every one of them are good Christian citizens. They learned to work hard and you can have a good life. Nothing was just handed to them.