Raising resilient children

There was a seminar this week at Lucinda's school about "a parent's role in teaching a child to be resilient" - that is, to help children manage and learn from difficulties.

This was valuable because Lucinda can be very negative before new experiences, even though she typically enjoys new foods, new sports, new friends, new challenges. She also sometimes broadcasts a wave of negative stuff as we walk home from school including, "I hate you," and this sometimes bums me out and makes me angry. So I was curious to hear some ideas on the subject.

Here are the highlights. What do you think about these? Are they realistic or crap? And what you do with your children to manage negativity and build resilience?

1. Resilience can be taught. Just as some children are natural athletes, some are naturally resilient - and some children need training.

2. For girls, a baseline skill for resilience is to build strong caring relationships. For boys, a baseline skill is to learn how to problem-solve.

This was curious because it mirrors the analysis of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"; that is, women talk about problems while men seek solutions to problems.

So if I accept this concept for Lucinda and Arno, am I needlessly reinforcing gender stereotypes or am I accepting innate qualities of boys and girls and taking the most efficient route? (I know my friend Adrienne, with her interest in gender diffs, will have some ideas about this.)

3. Convey to children that "bad times don't last" and "things always get better." This is a foundation for optimistic thinking: view problems as temporary and "talk sense to yourself" when you are in the throes of pessimism.

4. Find personal examples from your child's life, from members of the family, or from literary heroes to convey how a person overcomes adversity. I've worked the "remember how you worried about walking on the balance beam?" example to death, and now plan to make constructive use of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

5. Remind your child what they are good at.

6. Just as we recognize difficult patterns with bosses, colleagues, spouses or friends, look for patterns in your child's response to difficulty or anxiety. Then talk proactively about the pattern and how to manage it, instead of reacting to the negative experience of the moment.

7. Listen when your child is talking about problems, but at some point, say to him/her, "Have you had enough time to talk about this? When you are ready, we should talk about solutions."

8. It's okay to let kids struggle, like a butterfly that has to break out of its own chrysalis. (Corny, but an effective visual metaphor.)

9. At least one parent in the family should be an optimist. Typically, it's the parent who does most of the family management - which, in the expat community, typically means Mum. More responsibility?

The lecturer said that some kids carry notes like "I am smart" or "I am good at math" in their pocket before a stressful event. And she showed us these Strength Cards for Kids that say things like "I am creative."