Interesting email that I received that I think can help us all.  Write a comment about it if you feel and let us know what you think.

Is your child quitting everything they start? Need a Commitment Overhaul?

Here is a letter from a parent to Dr. Robyn Silverman asking about why her child keeps quitting his activities. What’s interfering with her child’s commitment level?

Dear Dr. Robyn,

I hate to admit it, but my child is a quitter.  Knowing the Powerful Word of the Month at our school this month is commitment, it seemed that now was the perfect time to ask what’s going on here.  I don’t want to raise a quitter.  Have any ideas on why a child quits everything they start?

–Jan K, Baltimore, MD

The question of commitment and quitting comes up every time our Powerful Words schools present Powerful Words like commitment, determination, attitude, or goal-setting.  As Powerful Parents, we want our children to show commitment and determination.  So what’s making them quit?

Children quit for all different reasons.  Some children feel bored while others feel overwhelmed.  Some children have unrealistic expectations that they are going to be performing the kind of martial arts, gymnastics, swimming, or other sport that they see “in the movies” or in the Olympics on the first day that they attend.  Other children see “today’s activity”  simply as another activity that they do—easily interchanged with football, basketball or dance lessons– so why stick with one thing?  Still other children feel invisible to the instructor, picked on, misunderstood or scared when they take class.

Make sure to ask questions rather than lecture.  Why do they want to quit?  Did anything happen in class? Are they bored? Overwhelmed? How do they feel about their friends in class? Their teachers? Is the curriculum too hard? Too easy?  And also, remember, to watch what you say and you do.  If you are quitting your activities, or someone else of influence in your home or family is doing so, children will learn volumes about the loop holes in commitment.  Take your cues from your child’sPowerful Words instructors this month and expand on what they are talking about in class with your children. Discuss it at the dinner table and in the car.  Tell stories about your own triumphs and how you stuck with something even when it was difficult. Talk about the importance of seeing the end and setting goals. And of course, set the precedent that your family always finishes what they start– everyone should have that “no quit, go-for-it attitude!” that helps each member to lead with commitment– and your children will surely learn to follow suit.

If you feel like your child isn't getting enough or is getting too much from our gym please let us know.  Sometimes we can't read every child and we need open communication to help make things better for you and for us.  We want to be the best gym for your kids but we can't do that without your support.  Thank you and we look forward to working with you!

SVG Team!

    COACH CARRIE          COACH CHARLY

YOUR NEW OWNERS OF SVG

My husband and I are so excited for this opportunity to serve this community.  We were looking for something to give and here it is!  To tell you about ourselves Charly and I have been married for 9 very happy years.  I grew up in Salt Lake and went to East High School and my husband went to school in Sevier County for most of his Jr. High and half of his high school years as well as lived in Marysvale for several years after coming home from Desert Storm.  Then he moved to Salt Lake to train with a famous Jiu-Jitsu Martial Artist, Walt Bayless.  I was a gymnast for 10 years and finished at a level 8 and then moved on to cheerleading in high school and college.  I also cheered with a private gym called Cheerz up in Bountiful for a while.  I graduated Salt Lake Community College with an Associate of Science degree in General Education and completed a year at the University of Utah in sociology.  Charly was a front line medic in the army and served for 8 years becoming a sergeant promoted in the field and also has some college experience.  Charly has trained Jiu-Jitsu for twenty years and still continues to train one to two times a week in Salt Lake with Walt Bayless.  Charly and I have many years of coaching experience but this is our first year at owning a facility.  We've owned a construction business and I also have a photography business on the side as well as Charly's blacksmithing and knife making business.  So we feel well rehearsed in the art of running business but still need your understanding in our first year of working out the kinks.

What brought Charly and I together were many things.  Our love of learning and having fun.  Charly makes me laugh like no other person in this world.  Humor is a big part of our lives and Charly is great at it.  We also have a passion for swing dancing together.  We learned a style called Lindy Hop specifically Hollywood style back when we were dating and haven't stopped since.  You can see us sometimes shakin' loose at the Senior Center in Richfield on Tuesday nights.  Another passion that we enjoy together is staying fit.  We have both been very athletic and love to stay in shape.  We've spent years learning ways to condition our bodies to be healthy.  What brought us here was a dream that became reality.  When we got married we decided what was important to us was to live a simple well lived life.  To have enough free time to learn and grow in many of our passions.  Charly enjoys blacksmithing, flying radio controlled airplanes, skiing, riding motorcycles, target shooting, telling interesting stories and working in his shop.  I on the other hand enjoy learning about photography, gardening, yoga, animals, skiing, riding atv's, and watching dancing with the stars.  In order for us to do that we thought it meant that we should live in a small town, in a small house, and have two smaller cars so that we would have as few bills as possible.  Which also meant that we wouldn't have to work all the time to pay the bills.  So this is perfect for us once we get the gym running a bit smoother.  We thought small in a big sort of way.  So we worked our fannies off to have a life here and it only took us 7 years!  At the time it seemed like forever and that it would never come true but we persevered and stuck with our goals to make it exactly where we wanted to be.