Wet towels and agile mindsets: conquering Freshers Week one human skill at a time…
I have been a university parent for a little over a month. This is a new sub-genre of parenting for me, and, as with all new roles, has so far involved a fair amount of trial and error, adjustment and reflection. For my child and for myself.
And of course, because I am a bit obsessed with human skills as the Co-founder of Vitruvia, I have mostly been reflecting on the human skills that are taking on the heavy lifting in this new status quo.
So, let’s focus on one of the obvious ones. Adaptability is right up there for both of us. She has a new space within which to live and study, and I have an empty space where she used to live and study, so adapting to a changing physical environment is one of the many challenges we have to manage.
But adaptability needs agility first. Agility is more of a cognitive state - a mindset that is predisposed to accept change. It is proactive, open to and ready for change. The agile mindset recognises the importance of taking quick and responsive action, which needs to happen in real time. But how does agility enable adaptability? How does a mindset convert into a behaviour?
For agility to enable adaptable behaviours, a possibility mindset is needed, something I think of as a ‘what if?’ approach to life. This is because adaptability involves planning, considering options and responding with flexibility to those options. To be adaptable, we have to look backwards to see what has already happened, take the threads from the past that we can still use and knit them together with the new threads we have been given to work with, to create new patterns of behaviour.
Sounds good in theory. But in practice there’s another human skill which really shoulders the heavy lifting I mentioned earlier, and that is determination. Without a drive to make the new reality work, new behaviours, even if formed, will not become embedded. And determination needs to be underpinned by strategic thinking, another human skill, because that helps us to identify and move towards a goal.
We parents must ensure that our child is safe, well, and - crucially - ready to go ‘out there’ in the world without us and thrive. That can often feel like an overwhelming task, the sort of thing a belligerent Greek God might hand down as punishment for playing a forbidden harp or carelessly killing a one-eyed monster, but there it is. Proactively teaching human skills is going to help us get through it.
An agile mindset isn’t going to appear out of nowhere during a fresher’s paint and sip event, so how can we help our children build the framework for agility in advance of any future transitions they will have to navigate? I have 3 key strategies to share:
Use ‘what if?’ language when your child is facing a challenge or key decision moment. Encouraging your child to imagine different scenarios and test their feelings and responses is a safe way to build a cognitively agile state. This can be a particularly helpful strategy for neurodivergent thinkers who may find the idea of change especially unsettling.
Help your child to develop their creativity, in whatever way you can. Agility is part of the creative skill set, and creativity in the Age of AI has growing currency. People who are able to approach work and life with exploration and innovation are in high demand, as humanity struggles to manage rapid and significant changes.
Notice adaptive behaviours and praise them. One of the most difficult, yet impactful techniques I learned as a trainee teacher is to notice when things are going well, because we all have a tendency to call out behaviours which don’t meet expectations, but can tend to overlook the ones that do. If your child has managed a change, whether planned or unplanned, tell them, and name the skill they have used.
I have tried to highlight and praise my daughter’s adaptive behaviours over the past few weeks instead of letting my worries lead my behaviours, and, with the exception of starting an argument over where to keep a wet towel (seriously, a wet towel) I have managed pretty well. Every washing machine conquered, every recipe tried, and every new connection made makes me proud and is evidence of her adaptability at work - and that helps me to adapt to my new reality of distance parenting.
