Raising Resilient Children
Importance of Resilience
‘Resilience is the happy knack of being able to bungy jump through the pitfalls of life. Even when hardships and adversity arise it is as if the person has an elastic rope around them that helps them to rebound when things get low and to maintain their sense of who they are as a person.’
(Andrew Fuller, From Surviving to Thriving)
I find the “elastic rope” of resilience fascinating. I often wonder how some people seem to have the ability to adapt well or ‘bounce back’ after a tragedy, a stressful event or a relationship problem and why others just get stuck, want to give up or so consumed with their current situation that their elastic rope is more like a skipping rope and has no bounce back ability.
I have had an opportunity to live in three countries, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore and I have met people from a variety of backgrounds, from incredibly wealthy business people to refugees who have left their homes and lost everything they own. I have met Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, Hindu’s, Muslims and everything in between. I have met people in all of these categories who are incredibly happy, settled individuals despite the journey’s they have been on, to those who are incredibly miserable, unhappy individuals unable or unwilling to bounce in any direction.
What I find interesting about resilience is it is not a ‘trait’; it is not like having blue or brown eyes and if you are born with it you are stuck with it, it isn’t a quality that only the ‘wealthy’ have or the ‘faithful’ have or those with a high self esteem have. One thing I love about resilience is it is really only measured when we experience the bad stuff! Why? Because the defining characteristic of resilience is how quickly someone bounce back to his or her ‘normal’ self after confronted with stress or trauma. You don’t need to bounce back to anything when life is going well!
Another thing I love about resilience is it not just a one off event, it is a process, this process involves actively developing your own survival capacities in order to bounce back and recover from difficulties. As a mother, this is a process I want my children to get, this is something that I believe will help them transition from a child to a teenager to an adult successfully.
The process of resiliency is learnt when things are tough, hard and stressful. As much as we want to protect our children during these hard times we also need to use these experiences as a learning process or a teachable moment in order for them to see that the current stress they (or the family) are experiencing can be resolved and they do not last forever.
Once again, this process means we have to be active in teaching our children ways in which they can resolve problems and bounce back to their normal self. So here are a few ideas that I am committed to with my children
1. Engage in strategic conversation with your child
Share with your children openly and honestly about the tough and stressful issues in life remembering there are always age appropriate and maturity appropriate boundaries. If you child is just about to start school and are upset about staying by themselves, it would not be an appropriate time to talk about the stress that the High School Certificate is going to bring when they are older!
Explain and demonstrate to your children how stress works and what feelings, emotions and physical reactions they may be having because of their reactions to the event. For example, my son Caleb was diagnosed with an eye condition earlier in the year that is related to stress. He was stressed about moving to Singapore and leaving his friends, he was upset that Daddy had been travelling and that he would not see him in person for 5 weeks. So we used this opportunity to talk about how stress can affect his body but how it does not have to last forever if we learn to manage it. These management techniques included wearing glasses to help relax his eyes, spending one on one time with mummy and daddy when he got a chance, spending night times talking about the best and worst part of his day. We also talked about his eyes and if they were feeling “sad” or “happy” that day and most importantly we made him look forward to the future by looking at all the fun things on the internet that he could do (or buy!) once we arrived in Singapore.
Teaching your child about bouncing back from problems does not mean your children are a sounding board for your stresses or any relationship problems, this just stresses your child out and makes them feel like they are responsible for your problems. Yes, it is ok for our children to see that we are sad but it is not ok to dump on them. It is not ok for them to know the in’s and the out’s of your marriage, financial, work or personal problems. As above, there are age and maturity appropriate standards when talking to our children about difficulties.
Ensure your children see a resolution to problems and discuss with them the process of making tough choices. This can be done through brainstorming activities and teaching them to do flow charts, writing out 2 or 3 possible consequences for the choices they may make.
Give your children choices. Allowing your child to make choices and then learn from their consequences is one way of ensuring your child is equipped to bounce back. A silly example for me is my children get dessert every night. They can choose what this is. Normally they chose 2 lollies (candy). I let them choose from the lolly jar and many times one of them will eat half of it and then tell me they do not like it. This process normally ends in tears but I teach them that they had a choice and mummy allowed them to choose any lolly from the jar, if they do not like it then next time they are to remember that they do not like that lolly. They do not get to choose another lolly just because they did not like their first choice.
2. Listen to your children
Listening to your child builds their confidence and shows them they are worth listening to and also shows them that their problems are important. This is incredibly important for resilience because a child needs to know they are WORTH bouncing back to the person they are.
Listening involves trying to see your child’s point of view of the problem and not making judgements of their feelings. If your child comes home from school upset or just does not seem their normal self, allow them time to process what is going on in their minds and when they are ready to talk it is your turn then to zip your mouth and listen. Do not jump at giving advice, direction or ideas but encourage your child to talk about how they think they could solve the problem. Use flow charts, brainstorming activities, consequences activities etc to support this process.
Listen to their ‘stories’, listen to their pictures they are brining home from school, listen to what they say their friends are and are not doing to see what possible struggles they need to bounce back from.
3. Build routine
If you are not a routine person become one! When children know what the next step is then it creates a safe environment for them to overcome their problems. Full stop. Not much more to say about that but create that safe environment by ensuring your child knows their routine.
4. Teach your child simple techniques to bounce back such as:
How to control their feelings. You can use breathing techniques, visualisation techniques, art therapy etc but ensure they know how their feeling impact their reactions. A simple technique in emotional times is to get them to close their eyes and think back to a time where they felt really happy, a time where they were having the most fun they could remember. Get them to think about that for a couple of minutes and then ask them to open their eyes and tell you about that story. After this, tell them how you just showed them how to change their bad feelings to a good one, by thinking about the fun times they did have and how they can have them again.
Another feeling technique is ask your child where in their body they are feeling their sadness, anger, frustration etc. Sometimes your child will tell you its in their hands, their chest, their head or their stomach. This will not only give you great insight as to where your child is feeling their stress but it will allow you to teach them some relaxation techniques so they no longer feel it in that area.
Goal setting – teach your child to set goals and complete projects. This starts very early on, packing away their toys, reading their home readers, setting homework goals for larger projects and what they will do on what day. If a child knows how to set and achieve goals and follow routine it will be so much easier for them to be able to have a plan that will help them bounce back in tough time.
Be the mentor, be the supporter for your child. Your child will need someone to be strong for them at times. Be that person for them.
Research suggests that there are three core psychological attributes to resilience: strength, meaning or purpose and pleasure. And this pretty much shows me why some people can bounce back quickly and why others cannot bounce back at all. If someone is lacking strength or they lack purpose and have no joy (pleasure) in their lives then they have no chance of bouncing back to the person that they once were.
So, for your children (and yourself) how are you going to actively develop a process that enables them to live a life style that:
Builds and creates strength – How will you create an environment at home that provides a caring, encouraging and supportive relationship?
Builds purpose – How you will support your child in finding their unique purpose?
Joy & Pleasure - How will you support your child in ensuring they experience joy in their every day lives?
