Below is the parent letter that goes with our social-emotional lesson that was taught this week. It was titled "Half-Hearted Mountain Climber: Commitment is our key to success "."
Dear Parent or Guardian,
Mountain climbers are only successful if they are committed to their mission. Leaders are the same way. You cannot have involvement without commitment and be effective. It goes with the territory. The Half-Hearted Mountain Climber is all about self-motivation.
This week, your student learned about self-management.
Self-management is the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.
While self-management may have many facets to it, we specifically learned about self-motivation using the metaphor of The Half-Hearted Mountain Climber. Habitudes are images that form leadership habits and attitudes, and The Half-Hearted Mountain Climber represents the need for self-motivation when following through with commitments.
Self-motivation is the ability to keep oneself interested and willing to complete an action or accomplish a goal. This is an intrinsic ability to want to achieve personal and academic goals. In order to climb a mountain, the climber needs to be dedicated! They will not reach the summit if they are not 100% committed to what they are doing. Though things might get hard, the climber will continue until they reach their goal. In the same way, we taught your students that they must be able to push through difficulties using self-motivation in order to follow through with commitments. Building this life skill will help your student in their quest for self-management.
Through this lesson, we challenged your child to think through some difficult questions—
Do you have any goals you absolutely have to accomplish?
What should you do to ensure these things are accomplished?
Your child has all the information they need to succeed, but they need you to help them interpret it. We challenge you to ask them difficult questions to keep the conversation going at home. Here are a few to get you started:
Why is it difficult to keep a commitment? Are you committed to anything right now that you wish you could get out of? What are some things you can do to refresh your desire to stay committed to that task?
Share your answers to the questions to facilitate a conversation and help your child process the importance of self-motivation.
Best wishes,
The Habitudes Team