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We naturally admire resilient people who can stand straight through any storm and bounce back after any catastrophe. While it’s easy to imagine that these folks possess some inborn combination of character, personality, and attitude, resiliency is actually a product of learned skills and opportunities.
And helping to create resiliency in our kids seems more important than ever. Not only do our children need to navigate the numerous challenges that come with simply growing up, but now, in an environment of school shootings and a barrage of social media, it’s no surprise that so many are struggling with anxiety and depression.
So, how do you raise resilient kids? Here are seven tips to get you started:
1. Help them learn how to solve problems.
Even the most optimistic among us would agree that life is about dealing with problems, which often seem like a never-ending moving target. Developing resilience is not just helping your child solve the hot problem of the day or week—the science project, breaking up with a best friend, not making the team. It’s about teaching them the art of problem-solving itself: learning how to deconstruct and define the problem in a concrete way, sorting through what’s important and what’s not, brainstorming options, trusting their gut, and defining the next action steps. Once they have these skills, the problems will keep coming, but they’ll have the tools to not feel like victims.
2. Help them learn to regulate their emotions.
But if we can feel like victims of our problems, we can also feel like victims of our emotions. The key here is learning to regulate emotions. When our emotions take over, our rational brains literally shut down, making problem-solving impossible; it’s easy to make impulsive decisions and say and do things that cause damage. Managing emotions gets our rational brains back online more quickly, reducing the negative fallout and giving us a sense of control and mastery.
Learning to do this is a two-step process. The first step is helping your child recognize when strong emotions are building so they can corral them before they are too difficult to rein in. You are probably more aware of this than they are. If so, simply say what you see—“You seem like you’re getting upset.” Over time, they will learn to do the same for themselves.
Part B is modeling and teaching them self-soothing skills: deep breathing, mindfulness, listening to music, taking a hot bath, writing down how they feel or drawing a picture, and walking away to regroup. The more tools there are, the better. If you need ideas, there are plenty of resources online.
3. Teach them to ask for help.
Despite our image of resilient people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, the research shows that the opposite is true: Resilient people are not shy about asking for help. By feeling comfortable asking for help, your child not only avoids internalizing problems and emotions and can solve problems more easily but, perhaps more importantly, learns and practices being both assertive and vulnerable—essential life skills. They also discover that life isn’t about going it alone, and from the positive experiences they’ll undoubtedly receive, they will see the world and other people as less frightening and more supportive.
4. Challenge them to take risks.
How do we grow stronger? By pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone: Lift that barbell or run that 10-miler; take that job in that new strange city; break up or propose to your longstanding, live-in partner.
The same applies to kids. Only by stepping outside their comfort zones—approaching their anxiety rather than running from it—do they become less fearful about trying something new. This may mean trying out for the school play, asking a classmate out on a date, or doing a ropes course. By surviving what can feel like a near-death experience (but isn’t), they discover they are more capable than they think. This is how they can build self-confidence.
5. Teach them to create multiple baskets.
If you put all your self-worth, support, and dreams of the future into one basket—your job, your relationship, your kids—it’s easy to run into trouble if you get laid off from your job, divorced, or your kids leave home. As any financial advisor would probably tell you, you need to be diversified to avoid trouble if your basket gets tipped over.
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What’s good for adults is good for kids. Help them create multiple ways of reducing stress besides video games; encourage them to have a group of friends rather than one; cultivate a range of hobbies they enjoy.
6. Focus on your child’s stumbling blocks.
We all have our Achilles’ heels—the one or two things (not 30) that get in the way of solving problems, effectively managing relationships, and getting what we need. The common culprits are fear of confrontation, struggling to regulate emotions, being self-critical, and not being able to tolerate making mistakes.
Where does your child get stuck the most if you step back a few feet? What do they struggle to do? What keeps them from solving problems and feeling happier, less anxious, and less depressed? Look for the big patterns rather than emotionally getting in the weeds of a specific one.
Next, put that stumbling block and pattern on the front burner: “You seem to get frustrated easily; I want to help you handle it better,” or, “You seem to hold thinI’din; I’d like to help you be more brave and let other people know what is bothering you.”
7. Be a role model, but also just do the best you can.
No pressure—but just as communication is considered to be at least 90 percent nonverbalchildren’sty share of children’s learning comes from seeing how the adults close to them run their lives. The challenge: How do I act so my children can learn to do the same?
So you do your best, manage your emotions, and take responsibility for your bad behavior; proactively let others know how you feel and what you need; solve problems decisively; and focus on the positive as much as possible.
Moral of the story: Become more resilient yourself, and your kids will follow.
