Building Resilience in your Family
The following parenting tips are from my discussion at the South Shore Conference for Women. Our panel of three is entitled “Helping Your Family Thrive: Now and in the Future.
#1 – MODEL - Be the model of resilience. If you’re feeling anxious or scared in a given situation, don’t show it. Show your response in a challenging situation with confidence. If they see your anxiety, they will feel anxious. If you are overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty, they will feel less safe and secure. Kids pick up on everything.
Example: I was at an outdoor skating party many years ago with my kids and some other families. A friend came over to tell me that my oldest son, who was 7 or 8 at the time, had fallen and needed my help. So I went over to find out what happened. As a pediatric nurse, I was a pretty calm mother–not much upset me. My son was trying to get up. He seemed to be fine, just a little blood on the ice. But when he turned and looked up at me, I let out a loud gasp and covered my mouth that had dropped open. His face was covered in blood, most of it coming from his mouth. He had broken off the bottoms of his two front teeth. Prior to me getting there, he’d been okay. But as soon as he saw the look of horror on my face, he dissolved into tears. It was completely my reaction that caused him to feel scared, and that things were worse than he thought.
If you don’t feel strong and resilient, fake it!
#2 –PERCEPTION - How do you perceive the situation you are in? For instance, the Covid-19 pandemic. Is it causing you a whole lot of angst and worry and stress? Or can you see it as an opportunity, a chance to change things up, enjoy some free time that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Whatever your perspective, try to lighten it up around your kids. Kids follow our lead. At the beginning of “lock down” back in March and April, I observed so many kids loving the free time they were spending with their parents. Yes, it is a big, drastic change from how our life used to be, but it doesn’t have to be all bad. And your kids can be the first to embrace a “new normal” if we can do the same. Their response to our new way of living–wearing masks, having less face to face social time–is largely based on what they hear their parents saying. If their parents are complaining about it, they will complain. They learn what is good or bad in life based on what the parents find to be good or bad. Whether it’s Covid quarantine, or being home sick with the flu, or missing a best friend’s birthday party, it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.
#3 – OPPORTUNITY TO PRACTICE - Give them opportunities to see what resilience and confidence feel like. Let them experience all of life–the good and the bad. Success breeds confidence, failure breeds resilience. Both are important. They need to experience both. Whether they succeed or fail isn’t important–trying and surviving is what’s important.
Experience is a great teacher. Kids learn far more through trial and error than with direct instruction. Trying a new experience is a golden opportunity to see what happens when they’re allowed to live more of life and are given some freedom. Give them a long leash to try new things. In fact, take the leash off! Be there for them, but don’t rescue them from challenges.
Whether they succeed or fail really isn’t as important as the experience of facing a challenge. They could avoid the challenge, or they could meet it head-on. If they succeed at overcoming the challenge, that’s great, because they’ve built some important confidence. If they don’t succeed, that’s great too, because they’ve learned resilience. Kids need to fail, fall down, embarrass themselves, and then get back up, recover, and continue on. The “continue on” part is resilience.
Kids need stressors and challenges in order to grow. Similar to an unused leg muscle on our body that atrophies when it doesn’t get exercised, a child who is not challenged grows weak and has difficulty moving forward.
Overprotecting your kids by not letting them encounter difficult times is not helping them. Preventing kids from experiencing adversity is crippling them. So, take the leash off, let them experience life and build resilience. And then be around in case they need a little help.
