Trying to find “their thing” might feel right, but when we begin to peel back the layers, this is a surefire way to reduce resilience and over parent. When you think about it for a moment, anything can be “their thing” if it’s something which helps them grow and they’re guided!

But it’s normal, and completely understandable why families feel this way. No one is out to make their kids worse off, just the opposite. But so often the things which feel right, may feel right because they’re easy. Or sometimes because doing nothing at all can be even harder.

If you’ve caught yourself feeling or thinking this way, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not the right reason to ever stop a hobby or sport. It’s important to dig deeper with your Risky Kid when you feel this way.

We’ve become spoiled for choice. Only a generation or two back the idea of doing more than one sport or hobby would have been hard to fathom. Not only because there just weren’t that many options, but also because we raised kids differently.The idea of “finding their thing” is a new one, born of a desire to recognise each young person as an individual, and to do them justice as their parents and caregivers by doing everything in our power to help them succeed and thrive.

And so we move them from program to program, hobby to hobby, sometimes multiple times a year! All striving to hopefully find the one program, sport or hobby which just “clicks” perfectly for them.

There’s a lot of reasons why we might feel this way. But to start with the toughest truth, it’s hard to convince a young person to do something they don’t want to. When they’re bored or challenged and decide they don’t want to continue, the easy way out is to believe that this time, this sport, this hobby just isn’t “their thing”.

And so when we’re faced with the choice to do nothing, or something, it often feels like doing anything is the best choice. This is something called the “Action Bias”. When a young person is struggling, it feels hardest to remain in the status quo. If we move on to the next pursuit, then at least we can’t be accused of not trying.

This Action Bias isn’t the right answer though. When your Risky Kid tells you they’re bored, or they don’t want to go any more, all you do by removing them from that pursuit is fall into a trap. One that feels like you’re doing the right thing, but all you’ve done is remove an obstacle, and an opportunity to grow, from their path.

The danger of this Action Bias though isn’t just in the removing of the obstacle, it’s in the reinforcement that act creates for your young person. You begin to create a “doom loop” of behaviour.

Every time your Risky Kid faces a challenge, or becomes bored because something isn’t “new” any more they come to you and say “I don’t want to go any more / I don’t like it / I’m bored” and you spring into action. “This must not be their thing” you tell yourself and others, and on to the next program.

This means that your Risky Kid learns that as soon as something is uncomfortable, or challenging, or just not “new” any more, that it’s bad. That it’s not “their thing”. This means they never learn how to persevere, how to achieve mastery and overcome obstacles. This means their resilience reduces.

These moments though, are the most powerful ones. Starting something new is always exciting, and even though it’s sometimes challenging it’s outweighed by quick early growth and affirmation.

Real resilience is developed in the mastery of something, in learning discipline by facing down the tough feelings that come alongside things getting difficult. When we have to work hard for our successes and growth.

These are the moments that are most challenging for us as parents and guides though, because these are the moments when our Risky Kids will be the least happy, but have the most potential for growth. Once you experience a few of these moments with your Risky Kid, you will begin to seek them out as there’s no better feeling than guiding a young person through a challenge!

Moving on to find the “right thing” is the easy way. The reason it’s easy, is because it’s easy to justify and might even be the right answer from time to time. Sometimes something isn’t right for a young person.

But you must challenge their thinking on this, you must help them understand why they’re uncertain because to truly find “their thing” means that they have to understand themselves. Otherwise what’s likely to happen instead is that when they find something which could be “their thing” they will have developed a reflex to avoid the challenge of mastering it.

They’ll live a life where no hobby, no job or even no relationship ever satisfies them unless it’s new and exciting, in a form of Novelty Addiction. The things that are most important to us are the ones which we invest meaning into, and create purpose within.

To counter this, at Risky Kids we work with young people to understand “why” they might feel a particular way about a challenge. We help them explore the consequences of their choices, both good and bad.

Almost always we find that when we undertake this process with Risky Kids, or families, it leads to incredible growth. They re-engage with their hobby, they learn to navigate these challenges themselves and their tolerance to discomfort grows (alongside their actual skills).

You can do this too at home. When your Risky Kid says “I’m bored / I don’t want to go” or begins to disengage do two things: Help them understand “why”, and talk with (and have your Risky Kid talk with) their mentors in the program to help.

Nobody wants to force a young person to do something they don’t want to, but there’s a wide, wide field between that and doing nothing. There’s so many rewarding ways for us to engage in challenged thinking to help guide young people, and when you feel that it might not be “their thing”, make sure you think again and delve into the “why” with them.