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Published on 04/06/1998 All articles from this issue

Adventurer offers keys to achieving 'super attitudes' in kids

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By Linda Taaffe / Town Crier Staff Writer

Like most parents, Jim Wiltens wants to see children achieve their best - only he has been willing to kayak next to headhunters, swim with a giant squid and climb an active volcano as a hook to interest kids to set goals and do better.

Through seminars and his books "No More Nagging, Nit-picking & Nudging" and "Good Express! The Five Secrets of Goal-setting Success," the motivational speaker has hosted seminars throughout Northern California for adults and children and has operated a children's summer camp in the Sierra for the past 16 years.

He spoke to parents April 9 at Blach Intermediate School in Los Altos about how to help their children develop a "super attitude."

At last week's seminar, Wiltens brought a trunk full of props, including games, puppets and a guitar, to better demonstrate how parents can help their children think creatively to solve life's obstacles.

He said children should never say "I can't," but rather, "I can if I find a solution to why I can't."

"A child's attitude is like a window in which they look at life," Wiltens said. "Whether that window is clear or dusty and dirty is dependent upon their attitude."

Los Altos parent Lisa Conway, who has two children, ages 6 and 8, said Wiltens was "phenomenal. He offered concrete, age-appropriate ways to work with children. These are things they can use for the rest of their lives."

Wiltens compared his program to computer software. "Kids are using old software that's not spectacular. I give them up-to-date software. If they're consistent, they will invariably have success," Wiltens said.

Wiltens' interest in motivating kids goes back a long way, to when he was 14 and teaching swimming to kids in his back yard. Wiltens said he was always finding the best way to motivate the kids. While working as a waterpolo coach in Canada, Wiltens said he learned that his motivational techniques made great athletes.

Wiltens said his success "formulas" take some time and work, but when families see it working on little things, "they keep upping the ante and do some amazing things."