From our friendships to our jobs and hobbies, all things end. Sometimes it’s even the ending which gives meaning to the whole experience. For this reason at Risky Kids we put a lot of emphasis on this.

This is the first of a three part article where we’re going to explore this Art of Quitting. In the first we’re going to understand more about why people quit, for either Avoidance or Exploration reasons and then begin to learn how we can tell when it’s healthy, and when it’s not.

That’s not what the Art of Quitting is about. It’s about understanding that the time when we WANT to end something is a valuable one. It’s not about encouraging kids to quit, but teaching them when it’s time to move on and how to do so in a healthy, respectful way, or when it’s time to dig deep and persevere.

The difficulty often lies in identifying between these two. People very, very rarely believe they’re ending something for unhealthy reasons. This is especially true for young people and their families.

Being open about quitting and discussing it with young people will not only help to build resilience as they face their discomforts and thoughts, but it will also deepen relationships between families. These are the times when we can learn who our young people are, what they fear and how they think. Most rewarding of all, it’s when we can see them overcome those fears. We’re grateful that at Risky Kids we see that every day.

There’s real reasons why a person might want to quit something, for it to end. At Risky Kids we help young people and their families navigate this weekly. Sometimes it’s that they don’t want to practise a move, or apologise to another kid. Other times it’s that they want to quit Risky Kids altogether. It’s so much more than just the case that a person wants to quit, and because of that it’s the right choice. Even now you could tell me as an adult there’s things you might not want to face or do all the time, but you get on with it all because that’s a part of life! Finding this balance, being able to navigate those moments and understand what is best for ourselves, or for our young people, is a powerful skill. That’s why we call it the Art Of Quitting.

People quit for all sorts of reasons. Something isn’t fun any more, it’s not challenging enough, it’s too challenging, the people aren’t our kind of people, we’ve changed as a person. There’s also times that we’ll quit because we’re afraid, or anxious and don’t want to ask for help, or that we’re unsure our skills are up to the task and don’t want to take the risk. 

Why we quit can be simply put into two categories: Avoidance, or Exploration.

But more often than not, especially for young people, avoidance is something which is rooted in deep parts of our thinking. We run away or try to eliminate the parts of our lives which are difficult, especially if we haven’t had enough experiences to teach us that those moments can be valuable. When we quit for avoidance reasons, we’re trying to diminish discomfort or adversity. We’ll explore the reasons for that in Part 2.

Exploration is when we’ve got genuine reasons to move on, we’ve identified a better place for ourselves, or that we’ve changed enough as a person to no longer need or want to be a part of where we are (relationship/job/hobby). We use quitting as a way to end things, to understand ourselves better or because we understand ourselves better. This is a powerful action, but it’s not something that is just easily achieved. It takes deep personal knowledge, lots of experience and a very objective perspective of our situation.

Often when we feel like we’re quitting for Exploration reasons, it’s far more likely that we’re doing it for Avoidance reasons. We come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses as to why it’s the right thing to do, because we don’t want to feel like we’re letting ourselves, or our young people down. Funnily enough, our experience at Risky Kids is young people are much better at being honest about these things. They’ll often just tell us that they want to quit because things are too hard, or they feel like they can’t do it!

We need to learn how to differentiate between the two, because in both cases when we quit, it’s going to change us.

The hope we have at Risky Kids is that we can teach young people and their families how to quit in a way which is “healthy”. What this means is that the young person and their family have gone through a series of steps to help them identify the reasons behind their choices and if those reasons make it the best choice.

We believe that when a young person says they want to quit something, it’s often because they’ve run out of tools to manage the challenges alone. Those are the moments where what a young person is really saying is “I need help”.

For example, a young girl had told her mum that she wanted to leave the program after less than a term with us. She said she didn’t enjoy it and wanted to do something else. When we spoke with her and asked her why she felt that way, the “grain of truth” was that she was comparing herself to her brother and didn’t feel good enough. Now if we’d let her quit without exploring this, we would have put her on a path to comparing herself to others, to quitting every time someone was better than her. Instead we helped her conquer those feelings and she excelled and stayed enrolled, meaning her parents didn’t have to go find a new program either!

Just the same, we’ve had families tell us their kids have reached high levels in sports teams, playing Rep Basketball or Soccer and need to focus completely on that, or that they’ve begun to master a martial art and want to add a few more sessions to their routine and have to give up Risky Kids. Those times we celebrate with the young people that they’ve found  “their way” gladly!

Never just accept a thought or statement as being enough information. For example, if your Risky Kid tells you “I don’t want to go any more” this isn’t a reason, it’s not even an emotion! Ask them why, ask them what feelings they’re having when they’re there, before, during and after.

A lot of times kids will say when they’re there they love it, but beforehand they’re nervous! Sometimes that’s because they’ve been ripped away from a game or something relaxing, or know it’s a Move they struggle with that week and want to avoid it.