We’ve all heard the old cliche about moulding our kids, and the reason we still hear it is because it rings true. We’re given this little mushy pile of person and what we add to it, and take away from it is going to ultimately determine the core of who this person is. Sure outside forces will influence them in certain ways, but we are building a foundation that everything else will build off of, or be repelled from. Just like the glass that starts brittle, fragile and vulnerable, we need to toughen our kids up to prepare them for what they will face in life.
Recently I was invited to a Blogger Bootcamp in Tucson, Arizona. A city I misspelled only 287 times in the last two weeks. Corning, makers of Gorilla® Glass wanted to give me, and a select group of influencers from around the world a look at the product that covers many of our devices, and to get to know what it is and how it’s become important to us all. I was definitely intrigued, as we all know how our kids are 10th Level Grand Masters at breaking phones. That’s a system of classification I just made up, but it sounds like 10th level is high, right?? So clearly I thought that the product would resonate with our community.
But when they went through the basics of what it was and how it was created, I began drawing links from Corning® Gorilla® Glass, to how we hope to be raising our kids. I know, it seems like a far jump, but you’ll understand what I mean in a second.
I suppose I should back it up a bit so you know what the heck I’m talking about. Corning makes roughly 900 trillion products. Give or take many many trillions. Don’t rely on that number, but recognize that they make a lot of things you and I have probably used every day. One of them is Gorilla Glass. It’s the glass that makes the screen for loads of phones, laptops and other mobile devices out there. An obvious problem with using those, is you can’t just slap on regular glass that you would find in your house. It would have to be massively thick so it wouldn’t break, and nobody wants to carry a windshield in their pocket; the wipers would constantly get lint on them. Enter Gorilla Glass. Corning scientists discovered a way to strengthen ordinary glass while keeping it thin and light. They are now on their fourth version of Gorilla Glass. Each one improving on the last. This one being impressively strong, as they demonstrated in a way that I won’t be able to do justice. Suffice to say, they remove something, or things on a molecular level and then replace it with other things. Voila! Strong glass that’s seriously impressive when it comes to scratch resistance!
So that’s where I was thinking that the glass relates to how I want to raise and toughen up my kids. I’m not talking about toughening them up in the “You’re 6 now, time for you to hit the coal mines like grandpa did” or “I know you want to play with your Barbies, but MMA practice is in 10 minutes” sense. But more in the sense that I need to prepare them for 
what life is going to throw at them in the years and decades to come. As our kids grow and learn, we need to do our best to prepare them mentally and physically so they don’t end up like Becky, the awful girl from your office who microwaves fish, throws passive aggressive barbs all day and uses speakerphone for all of her calls. Or Brad, the guy who man-spreads on the subway vapes around everyone and thinks you might…. Nay…. SHOULD listen to his cousin’s hardcore band as he blares it from speaker systems worth more than the car it’s housed in.
So as I learned about how Gorilla Glass is on a constant mission to improve and become tougher and more efficient, it reminded me of what I want for my kids. I want to be able to instill in them things that will make them strong. I want to take their current version and make it better. Make it smarter. Make it more creative, imaginative and expressive. Make it more empathetic and caring. I want the current version of them to be good, but I want, most of all, for them to learn that improvement is always an option. That they can never be too mentally or physically tough. They can always better themselves, and in turn, better the people and environments around them. The more they are able to improve themselves and strengthen themselves, the more prepared they will be when outside forces work to change them. They’ll be more resilient. They’ll be more able to cope with things they are confronted with. They will be more tough, and better for it.
*****Life of Dad partnered with Corning and Gorilla Glass for this post. Any and all content and opinions are entirely my own.******