The Power of Being a Role Model

What does that mean in practice?

This week, I interviewed one of the 4 inspirational mums from Yorkshire who rowed across the Atlantic ocean in 2015. Janette Benaddi. Janette shared with me that the key qualities that have helped her fly are her determination and resilience.

When I asked her how she acquired these skills in the first place, she said it was from her dad – she grew up watching him try and fail and try and succeed at lots of different businesses – she had a role model that showed her how to keep going and even when things didn’t work out and they hit hard times, she experienced the consequences and learnt that they could still survive anyway.

This childhood experience helped her embark on future challenges that even though she didn’t know were possible she did anyway  because she had an inner understanding that told her – if you try and fail, you will be ok.

The first things she tried were not hugely significant challenges, they were probably a series of small things that slowly helped to grow her own determination and resilience, culminating in her feeling able to say yes to much bigger challenges as she grew up.

What does this mean for how we help our children learn to fly?

I think it means two things:

1. However we want our children to turn out, we need to make sure we are doing our best to role model. They are watching us and picking up signs and qualities invisibly. Yes we will all mess up, but they are learning how we deal with that,  Do we admit it?  Do we give up? Do we blame others? Does our world fall apart?
2. If we want to help them grow certain qualities that will help them fly in the future, we need to think how we are letting them practice these now from as young an age as possible – that way they can slowly build their skills rather than be thrown in at the deep end when they become adults.

What are your thoughts?   Who were your role models?

If you would like to learn more, have a listen to our podcasts on the Be Inspired page and I highly recommend the book 4 Mums in a Boat!