What Simone Biles and Michael Phelps Can Teach your Child about being a Back-to-School Superstar
Amazing!
Awesome!
Incredible!
The adjectives used to describe Team USA’s Gymnast Simone Biles and Swimmer Michael Phelps just can’t cut it. Words that adequately express their domination at the Olympic Games in Rio don’t even exist. Watching them gave me goose bumps.
You know I’m into numbers, so I’m loving the stats of these Olympians. Phelps swam his way into the record books by winning more medals than any other Olympic athlete in history. Competing in five games, he earned 23 gold, three silver and two bronze.
As of Monday evening, Biles had won four medals: three gold in the Team All-Around, the Individual All-Around, and the Vault competitions and a bronze in the Women’s Beam. As an indication of her superior skills, Biles’ 2.1 point margin of victory in the Individual All-Around competition was greater than the combined margins of victory of all Gold Medal winners in that category since 1980.
So how does this relate to your child? As you’d expect, Biles and Phelps were born with incredible talent. But if they’d relied only on talent, the duo might have watched the Olympics from the stands (or from nice, comfy sofas in their respective living rooms.)
Becoming an elite athlete – especially one whose performances defy comprehension – takes an extreme amount of hard work. And attitude counts big-time.
You know where I’m going with this.
Superstars – whether on a floor routine, in a swimming pool or in a classroom – work hard and believe in their own abilities. Even if students have done poorly in the past, they can succeed if they put in the work and feel good about their chances of improving.
(Those feelings, by the way, are why Miracle Math students succeed in the classroom; we teach them to become self-directed learners, students who feel good enough about their own efforts that they commit themselves to doing better. No more nagging from Mom or Dad.)
Below are four back-to-school tips straight out of the Biles and Phelps playbook. Here’s what you can help your child do:
Set Goals. When he was eight years old, Phelps created what he calls a “goal sheet.” In a third-grader’s scrawl, he wrote, “I want to make the Olympics.” If your child earned a poor grade in Math last year, have him or her think of a reasonable goal – like getting one grade level higher — and write it down. Stick it on the refrigerator, tack it to a bulletin board or tape it to the bathroom mirror. Words are powerful.
Have Faith. “You need to have confidence and discipline to be a successful gymnast,” says Biles. For a student, discipline can mean sitting down to do homework at the same time in the same place every day. That’s a no-brainer, one that parents can enforce. Confidence is another story.
If students have a history of poor grades, what will give them the confidence to try to do better? You have a few options. Baby steps, for one thing. Nailing small, easy-to-do tasks can do wonders for a child’s self-esteem. Keeping an organized backpack. Reading or practicing fractions for 10 minutes every day. Staying after class to get help. Turn all of these experiences into “Good for you” moments.
And find activities in which your child excels, whether it’s soccer, music or cooking. Give them multiple chances to succeed.
Visualize Success. Early on, Coach Bob Bowen told Michael Phelps to get into the habit of visualizing the perfect race. Each evening before a competition, Phelps would sit and watch a race in his head in which he would dominate the competition. He’d look at the race from the perspective of swimming in it and from watching it in the stands.
It may sound silly, but why not have your child get rid of the before-test jitters by closing his or her eyes and visualizing? Have students describe going into the classroom, sitting down, having their pens and pencils ready, getting the test and mastering it.
Get a Supportive Coach. Teachers and parents are great motivators. But Biles recognizes that her coach is vital to her success. “It’s very important to me to know that my coach, Aimee Boorman, believes in me as much as I believe in myself, and to know that there’s someone always behind me rooting for me. I think that boosts my confidence a lot, and it makes me feel good about my gymnastics.”
Hope these tips help your child perform amazingly, awesomely and incredibly when school starts.
And if you’re looking for a good academic coach, check out Miracle Math. Take advantage of our FREE learning Discovery Evaluation to see where your child stands academically and how we might help: Click here to sign up now. Miracle Math Coaching is an award-winning, student-focused service with a track record of boosting academic achievement.
