After years of working with families and educators, one lesson has become undeniably clear: today’s children need more opportunities to build real resilience. Not physical strength, but the mental toughness that helps them face adversity, solve problems independently, and keep going when things get difficult.This truth was on full display during our recent Junior Black Belt grading. Watching students fight through the final spirit training, exhausted but refusing to quit, reinforced a powerful idea: inner victories build character. Struggle, pressure, and even failure are what transform “coal into diamonds.”Yet many modern pressures don’t build toughness; they drain joy. Children today face intense comparison-based stress: perfect grades, elite teams, top universities. At the same time, the everyday challenges that once strengthened kids: walking to school, doing small jobs, playing freely outside, have quietly disappeared.With technology, convenience, and our well meaning desire to protect them, kids often get solutions faster than they can grow from them. As parents, we want to help, but sometimes helping too much makes life easier, not better.The answer? Re-embrace the process. Let children struggle, try, fail, try again, and experience the satisfaction of doing hard things. A good life isn’t built on ease, especially during the years when character is forming.Here’s to raising stronger, more resilient kids.Keiko Karate
