Teach The Children Well

Motives and Attitudes

To teach the children well A martial arts instructor will be an example of how to be healthy and how to maintain a healthy relationship. Such a teacher is of great value. This is the second of a series for those who teach children. It is also for parents, so you can check if a particular teacher will be good for your child. If you have landed on this page before reading Teach Your Children Well Part 1, read that page as well.

Building and Maintaining Relationships

Relating to children. Children are literal creatures. Everything is black and white. You can't subtly manipulate them. If you want them to change something, point it out clearly. Don't make hints they won't get. Some martial arts teachers are in the habit of telling a student he is worse than he actually is. They think this will make the student train harder. What a silly idea. I wonder where that one came from. It only works with a few adults and with no children. If you want to teach the children well, tell the truth.

It's good to celebrate every little bit of progress. This won't spoil your child students. You can teach the children well by saying what they have improved on and why. Then tell them the next bit to work on. I've heard it said that martial arts teachers haven't got time to praise the things a student is doing right because there is so much to correct. Well don't try that sort of nonsense on the kids. All people blossom with praise and children especially do. It's easy to discourage them by only being negative.

Relating to teens. If anything, teenagers are more sensitive than children. If you want to maintain a healthy relationship with your teenage students, treat them as adults but expect them, at any moment, to revert to childhood, and don't put them down for it. Give them trust, but not too much responsibility. Encourage them to be open about how they think and feel without thinking you have lost their respect. Teens will shoot their mouths off and not realise they have said anything hurtful. But if they don't get it out, they will be too bottled up to train. Leave the talking it over part until they've calmed down and are happy again.

A male teacher should never be alone with an under age female student. This is plain wisdom in the world we live in.

Teens are full of energy some days and exhausted the next. When the kids come to my place for training after school, I usually feed them first. They know where to find bread and toppings in my fridge, and I let them. I treat them as I would my own children, now grown up, who used to come in starving after school. If it takes a sandwich to give them the energy to train hard for the next 75 minutes, that's a small price if you are to teach the children well.

Help new kids feel included.

Relating to new students. We Australians have the principle of mateship built into our culture. We willingly give a mate a hand up or help others. However, lots of television from other nations puts across a different attitude - the everything for me and nothing for anyone else culture, for example. Or class distinction thing some countries hold to, or the "in group", that Australians ought to be over by the age of 14. These attitudes sometimes taint the normal Australian way and new students can feel left out.

I make sure there is a culture of acceptance, mateship and encouragement in my children's classes. It's scary enough for a new kid to try something he's never done before, without adding the need to break into an established group of friends. In our groups, once a person comes, they belong. No one is going to exclude them or have a few friends they stick to without letting others in. If you want to keep your students, an attitude of willing inclusion and acceptance is essential. You are the one who will build this. In Australia, all are equal .... unless you're a sports star, of course. Then you can be on a pedestal one day and have it pulled out from under you the next!

Don't let even the slightest hint of superior attitudes enter your group. Being there longer or being older, or any other factor does not change the fact that they are all students. The older students should be developing responsibility to help others train, not pride and importance. This is Australia! Teach the children well and they will pass on good attitudes to the new students.

Relating to parents. Parents bring their children to class for all sorts of reasons. Learning how to be healthy is high on the list. Children's fitness is seen as more and more important. They find these things in martial arts training, and a lot more. This is good. Just remember you only have the kids there because their parents let them come. If you want to teach the children well, you need to keep the parents happy. Develop good relationships with all of them. If a parent says something negative about their child, they want to hear how you've noticed some improvements, and they want to hear the good you see in their child. Since every child is full of good things, this is quite easy.

Improving flexibility.

Try to keep your word to the parents too. Class starts and finishes at predictable times. Teach the children well in the stated time, then stop. Uniforms should cost what you say they do and not go up in price after they have been ordered - no surprises.

Parents are welcome at our classes at all times. Usually they sit around on the lawn and watch smaller children play, chatting to one another. The parents are the hidden force behind your child students. Let them see what you are doing and even join in the training if they like. I've had parents start having their own lessons because they got familiar with what was happening in the children's classes and wanted to learn too.

Why Are You Doing This?

Yang Luchan.

Money, fame or respect? These are all human desires or needs, but not a good motivation for teaching martial arts to kids. It's best to meet your own needs elsewhere so your expectations of the children are not too high. Teach the children well and with a free heart, not for some gain.

To pay it forward. This is a better motive. You can take your art to a new generation if you teach the children well. It's always a good thing to respect those in the generations before by carrying their art beyond their years. The art I train in was given to one or two students per generation until recent times. Those rarely chosen students gave their whole lives to training. They paid a big price. Their teachers lived on very little to put so much time into their students. It's like a huge debt owed to the previous generations. So if we take what they have gained by sacrifice and multiply at least some of it into the lives of another generation, we have paid back some of that debt.

Yang Jianhou.

I started too late and wasn't talented enough to become a master, although I'll keep reaching in that direction until my last breath. What I can do is multiply my teacher's time and efforts broadly. For every hour he has spent with me, I've spent hundreds of hours both in my own training and in passing it on. I've improved along the way and inspired others to train. These kids have huge potential to go way beyond my skill level in years to come. So teach the children well. They are the future of the arts.

For your own health and enjoyment. I got into Chinese swordsmanship for the fun of it. I added taijiquan because that was part of the whole system my teacher was training. Step by step, I learned to be healthy. All of this is good. I do what I do for my own health and enjoyment. I pass it on to kids and adults as well because of the "teacher" streak in me. It's the natural and fun thing to do. Why do you do it?

Zhang Qinlin.

To give something to society. The rewards of helping others, whether it is in children's fitness, emotional health, or other aspects of life, multiply into society. You might be teaching an Aspergers child how to build a healthy relationship, or a shy child how to have confidence. You might be helping a child who was no good at sports to be good at an individual sport. Perhaps the child always bullied at school has learnt how to stand up for herself. The rewards are only measured later, and in many cases, we'll never know. Did your training stop the bullied becoming a bully? Did your confidence building give them enough encouragement to start their own business? Did your class build a child into someone who gives instead of takes from society. You'll never know. But if you teach the children well, and are a leader they can follow, there will be a powerful impact on lives. Teach the children well and you build a positive future.

The Big No-nos

These need little explanation. If you want to teach the children well, you will never do these things. In fact, if you want to keep adult students and teach them well, you won't do these to them either.

Wang Yen-Nien.

• Never belittle, insult or embarrass a child - especially publically. Never compare one against another. They will be angry, disappointed and will immediately lose respect for you. If you want to teach the children well, you need to show them respect.


• Avoid favouritism. It shows in your body language, voice tone and attention. Favouritism gives the best to a few and is usually ego related - they learn faster, look better, make the teacher look better to his peers.
• Stop yelling. If you have to raise your voice to be heard, it's time to work on your teaching skills. Find some ways to get the children's attention quickly and quietly. Also, never, never yell in anger. If you have to do that, you've lost respect. You can't teach the children well if no one is paying attention.
• Don't use guilt. Children of our generation have many choices. Don't make them feel they have to come to class, participate in a tournament, or practise a lot, out of some obligation. The students who want to be there and train, will do. You can't really make them. Make it fun and exciting. Make it fulfilling. Tell them when they are making progress. Happy kids have the best chance of continuing. The ones who feel respected and trusted will often develop loyalty and good habits just because they feel loved and love back.

Scott Rodell.

• Try not to be too long-winded. Kids have a very short attention span. Don't use language that is above their heads. Don't say everything several times unless someone hasn't got it yet. Then say it personally to those ones while they are training. Use fewer words and more action.
• If you say you will do something, do it - on time. Don't make promises and forget them or change your mind. This is the biggest destroyer of trust. If you want your young students to listen to anything you say, make sure your word is trustworthy, even in the little things. Something that might have been unimportant or just a suggestion, to you, may have come across as a promise, or be very important to your child student. If you don't intend to follow through on your words, don't say them. You ARE your word. If it's faulty, so are you in the eyes of others.

As I said in Part 1, none of us are perfect, but as instructors, we can be working on improving. If you were a parent reading this, you just discovered there are no perfect martial arts teachers. So choose the one you think will do his or her best to teach the children well, and understand even the teachers are still learning.

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