A good half of the art of living is resilience.
—Alain De Botton
Of course, you want tough kids. Kids who are active and resilient, who are healthy and competent. You want them to be able to overcome obstacles and to defend themselves, and with all that to always be prepared for the ups and downs of life.
But you can’t just want tough kids. You have to make tough kids.
Theodore Roosevelt was famous for taking his kids on long walks and leading them over boulders and through thick woods. He wanted to get them used to exerting themselves and solving problems. Cato the Elder, the great- grandfather of the towering Stoic Cato the Younger, a man who rose through the ranks to become one of ancient Rome’s most politically influential citizens, did the same thing. He trained his son Marcus “in athletics, taught him how to throw the javelin, fight in armour, ride a horse, use his fists in boxing, endure the extremes of heat and cold, and swim across the roughest and most swiftly flowing stretches of the Tiber.”
You make kids tough by challenging them and teaching them the rewards of those challenges. You make them tough by toughing things out, together.