Parenting Toward Resilience

This blog is finally arriving.  I have been promising several folks this blog since December. And in true blog form, life continued to remind me that I needed to write this.  So here it goes.  As a mother, a daughter, a therapist, a recovery specialist, and a clinical social worker; I am going to challenge what your role as a parent.  

If you ask a parent what their primary job is, many will give you some version of “protecting my children”.  As a social worker who has witnessed the effects of trauma, abuse, and neglect; I can’t disagree that on a basic level this has some truth to it.  The problem is that once we get past the provision of basic needs and protection from physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse “protection” might be the wrong goal. 

I’ve been a social worker for 21 years and practiced as a therapist for 10 of those years.  In that time, I’ve never met a client who didn’t face a life challenge.  But here is the thing, as a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, I’ve also never met a human who didn’t face a challenge.  Divorce, addiction, death, violence, illness, unemployment, natural disaster……...Life is hard.  Life is beautiful, but few adults would tell you it is easy.

Despite this reality, the number one struggle I see parents face is an intense and guttural desire to protect their children from pain.  I have watched them protect family secrets, silence children’s questions, hide their tears, and flat out deny reality……. all in a desperate effort to “protect” their children.  I have listened to professions of intense shame over the fact that parents were unable to stop divorce, addiction, bullying, and their child being cut from the team.   I have watched parents endure financial hardship to give their children things they couldn’t afford. I have seen parents endure abusive marriages in order to maintain stability for their children. I have seen them interrupt the consequences of a child’s behavior with excuses and financial support. 

I suppose if you could actually protect someone from a life with pain, loss, or struggle then these rescue behaviors might make sense, but you can’t.  If we know that our children will face obstacles, isn’t teaching them the skills to walk through those obstacles more useful then protecting them from struggle? 

 I would challenge that the mission of parenting is not protection, but rather to building resilience.

Resilience is really a complex interaction of risk and protective factors and it isn’t my desire to oversimplify it.  A child cannot be exposed to an unlimited number of risk factors without negative outcomes. We know that when risk is high children are more likely to have negative outcomes. But from a parenting perspective, you often just don’t have the ability to influence the risk factors.  What you do have the ability to influence are the protective factors that play into resilience. Parents are a critical component to the environmental, interpersonal, and social factors that contribute to resilience.  A caring relationship and a secure attachment to a parent are huge protective factors.  Resilience is a critical life skill you can teach your children.  Below are 4 ways I believe you can teach your children resilience.

4 Important Way You Can Teach Your Children Resilience

1.  Modeling –  I listen to parents express great anxiety that they don’t “have it all together” for their children.  They are distressed that their children have to walk through hard stuff with them because they just can’t do it perfectly.  Your children watching you maneuver the storms of life provides them a model.  Remember, we’ve already established life is hard.  You can rest assured that your child will turn into an adult who faces hard things.  No, we don’t want children to carry adult responsibilities, but we want to take advantage of opportunities to teach them how to walk through storms.

2.  Hard Conversations- Have hard conversations.  My mantra with children is, “if it happened to you we can talk about it”.  What happens in families, happens to children.  You can’t protect someone from something that is happening to them.  When you refuse to talk about it, that only leaves them to handle it alone.  This is particularly troubling when we are talking about children.  On their own they may not have the skills to make sense of what is happening around them.  They need you to talk to them so that they have a framework for understanding what is happening.  In an age appropriate manner, talk to children about what is happening.  You don’t have to dry your tears.  As an example:  It is okay to say to your child, “Mom/Dad is crying.  Everything is okay, but sometimes it makes me sad that grandpa is sick”.  This teaches your child that even in the midst of struggle they are safe.  It teaches them that it is okay to feel their feelings.  It also teaches them it is okay to talk about feelings.  Children are highly attuned to their parents.  When something is wrong they know it.  Even when you don’t talk about it they know it.  They can feel it.  When you don’t talk to them you leave it to them to imagine what is wrong, which can be really scary.  You also teach them that they can’t trust their instincts.  They know something is wrong but their trusted parent is telling them that everything is okay.  That sets them up to not trust their instincts as an adult.

3.   Listening without Fixing- It is often very difficult for children to talk to their parents about their struggles.  They know that their pain troubles us and they don’t want to upset us.  They will take any cues that you don’t want to hear their pain and stop sharing.  So avoid trying to distract them by changing the subject, or telling them it will be okay.  Just listen and validate.  Messages like: “Yes, it is hard”, “Yes, you will get through it”, and “I’m right here with you”, are very helpful.  This assures them that they are heard and seen.  It also sends the messages that you believe they are resilient and that they don’t need to be rescued because you believe in their abilities.

4.  Asking for Help -  If you need help ask for it.  Don’t buy into the myth that you are supposed to be a super hero parent.  All people need help sometimes.  When you ask for help you show your child that it is okay to ask for help (modeling).  Asking for help shows them the importance of community.  It models healthy ways to give and accept from others.  If you ask for help when you need it, your child will likely ask for help when they need it too.   

We won’t be with our children through every storm.  It’s a natural parenting instinct to try to protect your child from pain, but it just isn’t possible.  The greatest gift we can give our children is the gift to handle whatever life brings their way.