Jenn Starnes

I was teaching in the Taekwondo center yesterday and I had to deal with multiple, emotional students during one class session:

Child one- 5-year-old boy who was extremely shy, hiding behind his parent, and didn’t want to participate in the class.

Child two- 10-year-old girl who was crying because she was overcome with a bunch of negative emotions / thoughts. She was nervous and self-conscious, wanted to withdraw into herself, not speak to anybody, or cooperate.

Child three- 8-year-old brother of the previous child. He wanted to participate in the class but followed his sister’s energy, and therefore was reluctant to participate or be outgoing because she just wanted to roll up into a ball.

I had 45 minutes to make a difference in their lives. That’s the nature of my “job”. I have the mindset that every class is an opportunity to win a student over and be able to positively influence them through Taekwondo- they continue if we accomplish that, or we lose them if we don’t. So I (and the rest of the team) do our best to teach great classes and reach each student every single time- no class is taken for granted. I usually step in to work with an individual student on the rare occasion when another instructor tries, but is unable to connect, and it just so happened that there were these 3 students who needed extra attention all at the same time.

To make a long story short, I was able to connect with them and get them to participate in the class with the other students. I made the 5-year-old feel comfortable, played some games, taught him some moves, and transitioned him to work with another instructor so that I could be with the siblings. I told the pre-teen that she was amazing, beautiful, and powerful and to stop identifying as a shy, nervous kid, and told her little brother to be his own person, and that maybe his big sister will follow his lead (this took a lot of coaxing, different emotional approaches, and patience). By the end of the class, they were participating and enjoying themselves, and the big sister gave me a big hug before she left.

I gave them all “challenges” that they were able to accomplish, gave them something harder to do, and celebrated all their little wins along the way. My husband asked me how I was able to get them to participate, and I told him I just see them heart to heart. I deal with a lot of different ages, emotional needs, and personalities in my industry, and one of the keys to being successful in what I do is meeting people where they are- listening, caring, and understanding them without having any expectations of how the interaction must go. People come to us because they want our services, so we do all we can to make sure they receive them!

There is no manual on how to deal with people, but as Zig Ziglar says “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” This mindset also holds true for parenting, but that’s a whole other post for a different time.

Love,

Jennifer