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).
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