How do the 4 essential survival skills children learn through rock climbing benefit kids? As a parent and the Director of Youth Programs at Philadelphia Rock Gyms, I can relate to parents wanting to give their children the best tools to succeed in life.
We want our children to be able to make knowledgeable decisions as they get older. One way to achieve this is through climbing. Let’s first explain what I mean by survival skill.
Example of a Survival Skill
Here’s an example. A lot of parents prioritize getting their kids into swimming lessons from an early age. It’s understandable why! Inevitably your children will be around water at some point in life. It is assuring to know your child has a certain mastery of water safety skills.
That is an example of a survival skill.
Rock Climbing As a Survival Skill
How can you get your child to train and exercise the mental muscles required to persevere in life, make important decisions with proficiency, and maintain a general sense of confidence and self-sufficiency?
Have you ever thought about rock climbing?
I know your first initial reaction might be, ‘Why is rock climbing considered an essential survival skill?’ There are many elements to rock climbing other than your child’s ability to effortlessly climb a tree or scramble up a rock face.
Where swimming teaches a physically life-saving skill, the movement of climbing, albeit impressive and incredibly physically strengthening, is really just a vehicle for mastering more abstract but important life ‘survival’ skills.
How does rock climbing teach survival skills? Through the four facets of confidence, courage, problem-solving, and humility. Let’s start with confidence as most skills start with confidence.
1) Confidence As a Survival Skill
Climbing calls to mind what we think we are incapable of doing and then with a little application, it soon reveals what is actually possible. Or better yet, what we are surprisingly capable of doing.
That’s a powerful realization to not just have but feel. You can physically accomplish a seemingly impossible move. You can push to the next hold when you think there’s just nothing left inside you. And eventually, piece together a challenging sequence of moves.
Additionally, climbing builds confidence through success on both macro and micro levels. Most kids tend to underestimate their abilities so this process of revelation usually results in a giant boost of confidence. It allows them to practice setting small, attainable goals. This really helps to build and maintain a certain momentum behind their confidence.
Importantly, that confidence inevitably trickles into other areas of life. Before long, it starts to become naturally activated even off the climbing wall or outside of the climbing gym.
Confidence is essential for making good decisions, both on the wall and in life.
2) Courage As a Survivor Skill
But good decision-making certainly requires more than just confidence. It takes downright courage sometimes. It’s not that people who are courageous don’t ever feel afraid. In fact, having courage means being brave in the face of what scares you because you can be certain you’ve rationally thought your strategy through.
Courage will help your child learn to be brave in the face of tough decision-making. It will teach your child to try something and fail. And in that process, to then learn from that failure. Courage also opens your kid to the idea of possibly being wrong sometimes. How can they grow if they don’t fail and get up and try again?
And failing doesn’t always mean ‘game over.’ When they realize that, they can have the courage to take calculated action. Climbing warrants that kids ‘try again’ over and over and it’s the only pathway to success on the wall.
Ask any successful businessperson, entrepreneur, leader, or great inventor: the pathway to success in business looks no different. Ultimately, the pathway to success in life is no different.
3) Problem-solving As a Survival Skill
Confidence and courage are just the foundation for strong decision-making skills and healthy life skills. Problem-solving is an essential decision-making skill.
We can’t always rely on our gut, our luck, or what has worked in the past. We have to be more analytical than that. Climbing teaches kids to evaluate a decision by considering as many possible outcomes first. Problem-solving can help decide if a decision is consequential or inconsequential to safety.
Good problem-solving skills can determine if the outcome is reversible or irreversible. Meaning, can I get up and try again? Trial and error are essential for fast-tracking success in this sport. But is trial and error really a mandatory safety skill for life? Sure is.
The simple answer is failure is inevitable, important, and frequent. And if it’s not frequent, you’re probably not going anywhere. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying. And if you’re not trying, you can’t possibly persevere.
4) Humility As a Survival Skill
But all this talk about courage and confidence in one’s abilities leads to a necessary point about balancing those things.
Once upon a time, someone decided to name a local outdoor climbing route, ‘Confidence over Cockiness.’ Wrestle with that bouldering problem someday and you’ll experience the namesake firsthand.
We’re not always right and that’s ok. But more importantly, can kids recognize that? They don’t always succeed and that’s ok. Navigating life and its demands is a process. It requires kids to admit when they are wrong and work to do better. It’s ok to struggle on a climb. That’s what makes them stronger climbers!
How kids respond to that struggle certainly determines how fast they are moving towards their next success. And how gracefully they can get there.
You wouldn’t show up to a pool party and expect to be a strong swimmer. The same goes for climbing. Dropping in for a night of rock climbing here or there probably isn’t enough to really hone those ‘life survival skills.’ You have to be dedicated. Those are the climbers who have gained survival skills during their time pulling on plastic in a gym or scaling the sides of steep cliffs.
4 Essential Survival Skills Children Learn Through Rock Climbing
Regardless of age, the type of survival skills climbing trains might not be what you expect from a sport.
It’s no secret that kids face a wide and diverse range of adversity these days, but learning the skills of confidence, courage, problem-solving, and humility can certainly prepare them for life’s inevitable ups and downs.
Confidence to try, courage to keep going, problem-solving to make decisions, and humility to accept defeat.
Life’s challenges certainly don’t disappear with childhood so why not choose a sport that they can grow into and continue to learn from?
