Hello #hive lovers..
Today, my son and I walked to the beach located in Batee Tutong Village. This beach is the closest beach to my residence and is usually the destination of people here. I don't want to describe the beauty of this beach because it is already beautiful. However, this is about how my son became brave enough to bathe at this beach.
About 5 years ago I told my son about the Tsunami in 2004 and how many human victims were found here and became corpses. It was not what I expected, that the story was so ingrained in his memory that he began to show hesitation about getting into the sea to swim. It was evident from the few times I took him to the beach and he always refused. As a father, I felt guilty for telling his this story and that I had contributed to his loss of courage. I had to fix it.
Bringing out his courage to play and bathe at the beach was not something I could do immediately. As you can see in the photo, a lot of effort was expended to make it look like he is happy bathing on the beach. One thing is for sure, no parent wants their child's life to be difficult. I want to prepare my child to be brave through various obstacles and an increasingly competitive world.
Being brave takes practice
In my opinion, when we want our children to be brave, the first step to teach them is to learn to tolerate fear. How does a child tolerate his fear? Here, I teach them not to let their fear hold them back from doing activities. I intentionally let him see the beach and get his used to it. My goal is to reintroduce the beauty of the beach as well as some beach activities. The process requires patience, but by getting used to it, he will gain experience.
I've lost count of how many times my son and I have been to the beach and I see his progress increasing. Previously, he was reluctant to go to the beach, but now he has started playing in the sand and occasionally touching the seawater. As parents, we certainly understand better how to interact with our children.
Full parental support.
So I am not just presenting interaction materials about the beach and the sea when it comes to facing the beach or sea-related things. The support I mean is support for other things as well. Supporting his hobby of tinkering with electronics, I bought him things like screwdrivers, pliers, and storage. All sides of a child's interests should be supported.
Because wanting children to be brave cannot be done instantly. In this way, our support as parents is very influential on the child. This is because later on, he also feels confident that when confronted with things he is afraid of, his parents will stand by him and support him.
Imitate your bravery in front of him.
I find it funny that we want our children to be brave, but we are cowards. Of course, we have to be braver than our children. Indeed, children's character is formed by imitating their parents. On several occasions when we were at the beach, I deliberately said goodbye to my son by mentioning "I want to take a bath at the beach". Without waiting for a reaction, I immediately ran to the beach and took a shower while showing him how fun it was to bathe there.
This method is very easy and effective as a way to teach children to be brave. The proof that this method is successful is when he dared to approach the beach after I called him and told him to bring me drinking water. Now, he is the one tugging on my hand to play on the beach and take a bath together. Thank goodness.
Support from the environment.
Other than the home and family, a child's friends make up his other environment. While it is true that children are sometimes not brave (don't say they are scared or timid if you are teaching them), the children they have as friends must be brave. On several occasions, I have deliberately invited his friends to come with me on this trip.
One of his friends immediately ran to the beach followed by his other friends, including my son. Unconsciously, this motivation gave him the courage to face his fear. Reaching out to him and his friends is our way of reaching out to his social circle. The interaction has encouraged my son to be more courageous.
Most importantly, the child's self-confidence proccess.
Generally, children have a high level of self-confidence, because their expressions will be difficult to contain unless we limit them. So when there is something he is afraid of, there must be learning and difficult experiences happening to him. So we must build the child's confidence early on so that he can face situations that he is afraid of.
In front of his mother, siblings, and friends, I always tell him about his current progress in playing on the beach. Praise for his success has made his fear pass. The child will feel capable and he will be able to make people happy with his efforts.
Hence, as you can see today, the fear of playing in the sea has disappeared. He came to the beach with friends and I was tired because they played for more than 3 hours.
Conclusion
In order to make children brave enough to face their fears, we must be brave enough to teach our childen how to be brave. When a child is supported by their parents, friends, and other members of his environment, they will be better prepared to face all the challenges of adult life. He will also be better prepared to take risks.
I appreciate you taking the time to visit my blog. I would appreciate some corrections from you in the future for being good content creators, please feel free to comment below. Hopefully, some of what I got in my image does not violate the rules of photography. As a beginner, I'm still learning. Thank you Education community supported by 
| My warmest regard | :  |
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| Camera Resource | : Canon 800D |
| Location | : Batee Tutong Beach, Aceh, Indonesia |
