10 Tips For Raising
Resilient Kids
While adulthood is filled with serious responsibilities,
childhood isn’t exactly stress-free. Kids take tests, learn new information,
change schools, change neighborhoods, get sick, get braces, encounter bullies,
make new friends and occasionally get hurt by those friends.
What helps kids in navigating these kinds of challenges is
resilience. Resilient kids are problem solvers. They face unfamiliar or tough
situations and strive to find good solutions.
“When they step into a situation, [resilient kids] have a sense
they can figure out what they need to do and can handle what is thrown at them
with a sense of confidence,” said Lynn Lyons,
LICSW, a psychotherapist who specializes in treating anxious families and
co-author of the book Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise
Courageous and Independent Children with anxiety expert Reid Wilson, Ph.D.
This doesn’t mean that kids have to do everything on their own, she
said. Rather, they know how to ask for help and are able to problem-solve their
next steps.
Resilience isn’t birthright. It can be taught. Lyons encouraged
parents to equip their kids with the skills to handle the unexpected, which
actually contrasts our cultural approach.
“We have become a culture of trying to make sure our kids are
comfortable. We as parents are trying to stay one step ahead of everything our
kids are going to run into.” The problem? “Life doesn’t work that way.”
Anxious people have an especially hard time helping their kids
tolerate uncertainty, simply because they have a hard time tolerating it
themselves. “The idea of putting your child through the same pain that you went
through is intolerable,” Lyons said. So anxious parents try to protect their
kids and shield them from worst-case scenarios.
However, a parent’s job isn’t to be there all the time for their
kids, she said. It’s to teach them to handle uncertainty and to problem-solve.
Below, Lyons shared her valuable suggestions for raising resilient kids.
1. Don’t accommodate every need.
According to Lyons, “whenever we try to provide certainty and
comfort, we are getting in the way of children being able to develop their own
problem-solving and mastery.” (Overprotecting kids only fuels their anxiety.)
She gave a “dramatic but not uncommon example.” A child gets out
of school at 3:15. But they worry about their parent picking them up on time.
So the parent arrives an hour earlier and parks by their child’s classroom so
they can see the parent is there.
In another example, parents let their 7-year-old sleep on a
mattress on the floor in their bedroom because they’re too uncomfortable to
sleep in their own room.
2. Avoid eliminating all risk.
Naturally, parents want to keep their kids safe. But eliminating
all risk robs kids of learning resiliency. In one family Lyons knows, the kids
aren’t allowed to eat when the parents are not home, because there’s a risk
they might choke on their food. (If the kids are old enough to stay home alone,
they’re old enough to eat, she said.)
The key is to allow appropriate risks and teach your kids
essential skills. “Start young. The child who’s going to get his driver’s
license is going to have started when he’s 5 [years old] learning how to ride
his bike and look both ways [slow down and pay attention].”
Giving kids age-appropriate freedom helps them learn their own
limits, she said.
3. Teach them to problem-solve.
Let’s say your child wants to go to sleep-away camp, but they’re
nervous about being away from home. An anxious parent, Lyons said, might say,
“Well, then there’s no reason for you to go.”
But a better approach is to normalize your child’s nervousness,
and help them figure out how to navigate being homesick. So you might ask your
child how they can practice getting used to being away from home.
When Lyons’s son was anxious about his first final exam, they
brainstormed strategies, including how he’d manage his time and schedule in
order to study for the exam.
In other words, engage your child in figuring out how they can
handle challenges. Give them the opportunity, over and over, “to figure out
what works and what doesn’t.”
4. Teach your kids concrete skills.
When Lyons works with kids, she focuses on the specific skills
they’ll need to learn in order to handle certain situations. She asks herself,
“Where are we going with this [situation]? What skill do they need to get
there?” For instance, she might teach a shy child how to greet someone and
start a conversation.
5. Avoid “why” questions.
“Why” questions aren’t helpful in promoting problem-solving. If
your child left their bike in the rain, and you ask “why?” “what will they say?
I was careless. I’m an 8-year-old,” Lyons said.
Ask “how” questions instead. “You left your bike out in the rain,
and your chain rusted. How will you fix that?” For instance, they might go
online to see how to fix the chain or contribute money to a new chain, she
said.
Lyons uses “how” questions to teach her clients different
skills. “How do you get yourself out of bed when it’s warm and cozy? How do you
handle the noisy boys on the bus that bug you?”
6. Don’t provide all the answers.
Rather than providing your kids with every answer, start using
the phrase “I don’t know,” “followed by promoting problem-solving,” Lyons said.
Using this phrase helps kids learn to tolerate uncertainty and think about ways
to deal with potential challenges.
Also, starting with small situations when they’re young helps
prepare kids to handle bigger trials. They won’t like it, but they’ll get used
to it, she said.
For instance, if your child asks if they’re getting a shot at
the doctor’s office, instead of placating them, say, “I don’t know. You might
be due for a shot. Let’s figure out how you’re doing to get through it.”
Similarly, if your child asks, “Am I going to get sick today?”
instead of saying, “No, you won’t,” respond with, “You might, so how might you
handle that?”
If your child worries they’ll hate their college, instead of
saying, “You’ll love it,” you might explain that some freshmen don’t like their
school, and help them figure out what to do if they feel the same way, she
said.
7. Avoid talking in catastrophic terms.
Pay attention to what you say to your kids and around them.
Anxious parents, in particular, tend to “talk very catastrophically around
their children,” Lyons said. For instance, instead of saying “It’s really
important for you to learn how to swim,” they say, “It’s really important for
you to learn how to swim because it’d be devastating to me if you drowned.”
8. Let your kids make mistakes.
“Failure is not the end of the world. [It’s the] place you get
to when you figure out what to do next,” Lyons said. Letting kids mess up is
tough and painful for parents. But it helps kids learn how to fix slip-ups and
make better decisions next time.
According to Lyons, if a child has an assignment, anxious or
overprotective parents typically want to make sure the project is perfect, even
if their child has no interest in doing it in the first place. But let your
kids see the consequences of their actions.
Similarly, if your child doesn’t want to go to football
practice, let them stay home, Lyons said. Next time they’ll sit on the bench
and probably feel uncomfortable.
9. Help them manage their emotions.
Emotional management is key in resilience. Teach your kids that
all emotions are OK, Lyons said. It’s OK to feel angry that you lost the game
or someone else finished your ice cream. Also, teach them that after feeling
their feelings, they need to think through what they’re doing next, she said.
“Kids learn very quickly which powerful emotions get them what
they want. Parents have to learn how to ride the emotions, too.” You might tell
your child, “I understand that you feel that way. I’d feel the same way if I
were in your shoes, but now you have to figure out what the appropriate next
step is.”
If your child throws a tantrum, she said, be clear about what
behavior is appropriate (and inappropriate). You might say, “I’m sorry we’re
not going to get ice cream, but this behavior is unacceptable.”
10. Model resiliency.
Of course, kids also learn from observing their parents’
behavior. Try to be calm and consistent, Lyons said. “You cannot say to a child
you want them to control their emotions, while you yourself are flipping out.”
“Parenting takes a lot of practice and we all screw up.” When
you do make a mistake, admit it. “I really screwed up. I’m sorry I handled that
poorly. Let’s talk about a different way to handle that in the future,” Lyons
said.
Resiliency helps kids navigate the inevitable trials, triumphs
and tribulations of childhood and adolescence. Resilient kids also become
resilient adults, able to survive and thrive in the face of life’s unavoidable
stressors.
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