Resilience will Benefit your Child for the Rest of their Life
Hey Friend,
I hope that this episode gives you some tactical tools to use when bad things happen and life feels out of control. Too often, I’ve felt like my back is against the wall and I’m out of options. There have been days recently where I’ve said “I don’t know what to do. I’m out of moves and I feel trapped.” Enter the downward emotional spiral.
We parents are carrying huge amounts of pressure and relentless demands from all sides. Even after we have closed up shop for the day, we are left with our anxieties over what is next and how our children will be treated in response to their additional needs. I’ve lost countless hours of sleep worrying about how Luke is being treated by peers and staff at school. My son is in Kindergarten and he has recently been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. Thankfully, I developed a good rapport with the educators at his school and we have as much transparency in communication as I could realistically hope for. But, I’m still left with worries. It’s hard to let go, especially for us moms, and pray for the best as our children walk out the door.
As I’ve faced my own battle with anxiety, I learned that even if something bad happens or we experience our worst-case scenario, we still have options. So instead of spending precious energy being anxious and spiraling in our emotions, we can equip our children with the one skill that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.
We can focus on teaching this skill and know that when the inevitable challenge does come their way, they can handle it with confidence.
This incredible skill is resilience. I used to think it was just being able to “bounce back” or merely survive something traumatic. I thought continuing to function was the goal. While that is somewhat true, real resilience is learning from a situation, making adjustments, and doing better in the future, there is a growth mindset rather than a negative, self-defeating inner dialogue. Really, it is the ability to endure adversity and come out stronger, thriving in life after a negative event.
So, how do we instill this superpower in our kids?
Not surprisingly, it starts with us. We as parents have to do the internal work necessary to become resilient and model it for our kids. It’s hard but our family will be better for it with stronger parents, capable kids, and deeper bonds.
Instilling resilience starts with a strong foundation. We become safe, stable, consistent, and loving parents. We practice self-reflection to identify the lessons learned from a particular event and develop the confidence to take more healthy risks.
It's like imagining a professional athlete has a serious injury. What do they do? Do they have a growth mindset where they can sit with the fear of not competing again and develop a training plan to get back on the field? Then, work hard to strengthen the injured area and ultimately return to the game. Or do they feel overwhelmed by the odds of their career being over and the amount of rehab needed and decide to give up?
I know that I don’t want to be a parent that gives up. I want to look back on the challenges and celebrate how well our family came through that season. I want to recognize how we are each stronger and more capable people for having gone through that experience. I also want to take the power away from trauma and feel in control of my life. To get to this place, we need to have a deep understanding of resilience and its results.
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg developed the 7 C’s of resilience: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. These are all traits we want to consciously teach our kids over time. We can be mindful of creating these intentional “safe risk” opportunities throughout their childhood.
If we are building our kids' competence, we are allowing them to make decisions and experience both success and failure. When they learn responsibility from these choices, it builds feelings of competence.
When we focus on confidence, we provide our kids with opportunities to face a challenge and give them the space to decide what to do about the solution.
To foster connection, we help our child think about their values and spend time in faith-based groups, sports, and shared interests with others to be a part of a bigger community.
In teachable moments related to character, we guide our kids to make wise choices by weighing their options, talking through the potential effects of their decisions, and evaluating their choices to align with their predetermined values.
Give your child a sense of contribution by giving back, volunteering, or helping someone else who is having a hard time. They will understand that the world is a big place and they are an important part of it!
When coaching your child to cope, show them how to identify difficult feelings or circumstances. Then, help them sit through the anxiety or feelings they are experiencing. You can encourage them to choose a helpful coping strategy to manage these emotions.
Kids realize that they have control when they see that their actions have an impact. Their actions and choices lead to results. This gives them the power to change their circumstances and improve. When our kids start engaging in resilient behaviors, they will experience increased motivation, a more positive outlook, flexible thinking, and a renewed interest in problem-solving.
While we can’t prevent or protect our kids from all of life’s curveballs, we can equip them with how to cope and grow stronger as a result. Our kids are going to respond to life’s hardships in some way. Will they turn to healthy coping habits or destructive behaviors? How can we equip them to choose productive coping by strategies that build their resilience and open up opportunities for success?
We have to begin with small intentional actions or opportunities to develop resilience together. For starters, we can prioritize shared experiences and quality time with everyone being mentally present. During this bonding time, we can be nonjudgmental and validate their feelings, affirming that they are in a difficult situation.
We can directly support our children with problem-solving skills by teaching mindfulness that focuses on the present. Remind them that the past is gone, the future is unknown, and all we really have is right now. We can enjoy the current moment together to reduce stress and anxiety.
Calming techniques like taking a nature walk, deep breathing, listening to ocean waves music, or swinging on the swing set help kids habituation down out of their unpleasant feelings. Brainstorming solutions to a problem together and let them help solve yours too. This helps your child feel confident, competent, and connected.
For a long time, I didn’t realize that I had some negative thinking patterns. Some refer to these as cognitive distortions. When I started doing cognitive restructuring, a whole new world opened up. I was less anxious and more present, and I felt capable of overcoming my anxiety with the right tools. Cognitive restructuring is literally noticing negative thinking patterns and replacing them with positive thoughts consistently over time. You are retraining how your brain thinks.
This is something I want for you too. We can demonstrate healthy thinking patterns by reassuring kids that there is uncertainty in the world and we will focus on what we can control. Showing our children how to practice healthy control by encouraging them to choose a 5-minute water break, choosing to exercise, or helping a sibling with something can instill a sense of agency. We can provide confident messaging by reminding the child that “It was hard last time, and you adapted to overcome that challenge.”
Another explicit strategy to instill resilience in our kids is modeling how to find a sense of meaning and hopefulness. In addition to reviewing our family values, we can practice appreciating the small things and celebrating the wins. To increase your bond with your child, praise them for their strengths and let them help you overcome a challenge.
Asking for their input on a problem you are having shows them that you respect their opinions and trust their judgment. They can apply their problem-solving skills and deepen their self-confidence at the same time.
When you develop this collaborative approach to resilience within the family, parents need to also consider showing that you too consistently practice healthy coping skills. Whenever there is a challenge or uncertainty, children look to the adults in their lives to make sense of what is happening. Be consistent in healthy behavior to provide stability in difficult times. As parents, we need to take care of our own basic needs like sleeping, eating, exercising, and hygiene so we can have the energy and mental clarity to make beneficial choices. Think about it like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The pyramid starts with our own physiological needs at the base and more complex needs build from there. We can’t meet higher-level needs like belonging, love, esteem, or self-actualization if we haven’t slept more than 3 hours a night for the last week.
As you restore your own mental bandwidth, start facing your fears and reframing your thinking. These are great skills to teach your kids when they encounter anxiety. Let’s think about this scenario, you think, “I’m a failure for losing my temper with my kid,” into “I was angry in a difficult situation and I’m going to take a break before getting escalated to that level again.” This change in thinking takes you out of self-blame and into a place of empowerment and resilience. You’re letting a mistake become an opportunity to learn and do better next time.
When helping your child reframe negative thinking, you could provide an opposing perspective. You can challenge the validity of that thought with examples of how it may not be as bad as they think it is. It’s important to show kids that black-and-white or “all or nothing” thinking isn’t helpful because there is so much gray in the world. Thinking more in the gray is actually good because what once felt like having only two options, black or white, just multiplied into significantly more options. Understanding more ways of viewing a situation gives your child more agency in decision-making.
Another tactical tip is to model choosing a healthy strategy when emotionally escalated. We have an emotional regulation chart in the kitchen in a place we frequently walk by. I have started going over to it myself when angry or frustrated and picking one of the cool-down activities. My 4-year-old daughter and I have been practicing choosing one of the strategies pictured on the chart and then coming back together to talk about what happened. I explain I’m taking a 2-minute break to take deep breaths and I’ll come back. My daughter will often choose to play with a toy for a few minutes before coming back to talk about feelings. One of the most important things is to reconnect with your child after taking a break. This reinforces the bond and doesn’t allow room for your child to feel rejected or alone with their emotions.
This season of raising kids is hard. Have self-compassion and empathy for your people in this season, no one wakes up wanting to make the day more difficult, they just need more support to reach their goals.
Access your support network here, you can’t be the sole manager of everyone's needs or you will end up burned out and resentful. Trust me, I’ve been there. Can a grandparent or family member relieve you for a couple of hours to exercise or take a nap? Could a neighbor help mow your lawn so you can get the house cleaned? Could you outsource any responsibilities (lawn care, laundry service, home cleaning, grocery shopping, child care?) to gain some personal time?
Show your kids that they have options and so do you, you don’t have to feel trapped. Stress can give us tunnel vision. We can’t see any other options in the flood of anxiety. If we can self-regulate and begin to see alternative choices to our problems, then we can make healthy changes.
Another specific example that develops resilience is creating SMART goals that encourage a sense of control, personal responsibility, and bravery. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
For example, your child only gets 2 out of 10 math problems correct on a quiz. Help them see that their grade tells them helpful information. They need to set a goal to do better next time. A SMART goal, “I will study addition problems for 30 minutes each day for 3 days before the next quiz.” Then, celebrate the win!
The final strategy for developing resilience is embracing failure. Establish that failure is a normal part of life and embrace failure in your family culture.
You can model how you failed at something and what you learned from it for next time. You could even discuss some things you would do differently or strategies that would be helpful when trying again. I love how math professor Amanda Jansen views this when she describes labeling some activities “rough draft thinking. Give children permission to ask questions, make mistakes, and revise without the stifling prospect of failure.”
As we learn more about resilience and apply it to our lives, I hope that this next generation will be much more kind to themselves and others. When we teach our children to name their emotions, interpret them rationally, and act based on a growth mindset, we can rest in knowing that whatever difficulties they face like fear, bullying, failures, criticism, or self-doubt, they will make it through with resilience.
Thanks so much for listening. There are a ton of resources in the show notes if you’d like to read more about developing resilience.
Until next time,
Ash
