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10 Tips For Raising Resilient Children

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.

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.
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.
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.”
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.
“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?”
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.
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.”
“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.
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.”
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.

Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. is an Associate Editor at Psych Central and blogs regularly about eating and self-image issues on her own blog, Weightless.

APA Reference
Tartakovsky, M. (2013). 10 Tips For Raising Resilient Kids. Psych Central. Retrieved on August 30, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/10-tips-for-raising-resilient-kids/00017272

Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 25 Jul 2013
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.

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Not Every Kid Deserves A Prize

How does rewarding our children for doing nothing prepare them for real life?
by Karin Fuller

Soccer team

Michael Byers

In some soccer coach's basement sits a little gold trophy with my daughter's name inscribed near the base. We never went to the post-season party to pick it up, never attempted to get it some other way. She didn't deserve it. Nor did she want it. At 8 years old, she hated soccer. She hated the uncomfortable shin guards, the itchy socks, the boring black cleats.

She disliked practice and she passionately, fervently, detested the actual games. Still, for completing the season, the team wanted to give her a trophy. I couldn't understand why. In my mind, if you start something, you finish it. And that gets an "atta girl"—not a trophy.

I recently overheard a waiting-room conversation between two mothers. One complained her son wasn't allowed on a field trip reserved "unfairly" for high-achievers. She admitted her son had made little effort to earn his spot, but in her eyes, it was unreasonable to reward some kids and not others. The second mother was upset because her son had received a failing grade for repeatedly falling asleep in class. "It's not fair," she said. "He turned in most of his homework assignments."

Let me see if I've got this right: Kids who don't try should get the same benefits as those who do? And completing most of the assignments should discount that sleeping-in-class thing? Are we so obsessed with fairness that we raise children to believe everyone should be treated the same, regardless of effort or skill?

My husband, Geoff, was a teen with a younger sister when his father remarried a woman with two boys. Both older boys were accustomed to always coming first, while the younger kids were used to baby-of-the-family privileges. But suddenly the roles—and rules—had changed. Cries of "Not fair!" became commonplace. One day Geoff's father sat down with all four kids and said essentially this: "On any given day, life isn't fair. That's the way it goes. We hope everything evens out in the long run. Live with it."

It seems we've become so preoccupied with this idea of equality that kids believe they're entitled to the same gifts as everyone else. I've sat through awards assemblies where every child receives recognition. I've attended sporting events where each player leaves with a trophy. And every time I see it happen, I shake my head. By trying to run our schools and activities counter to reality, we're doing a disservice to our children.

There may be some who disagree, believing there's no harm in giving trophies to all, that it's a harmless way to recognize kids' participation and encourage them to try. What they're failing to see is that by rewarding everyone, the trophy is devalued, or the certificate becomes nothing but a piece of nice paper with a pretty font. In our quest to make everyone equal and everything fair, no one is special. By bolstering self-esteem across the board, we're sending the message that self-esteem is more important than hard work and achievement. But ultimately, high self-esteem doesn't guarantee success. That takes self-discipline, self-reliance and self-control.

I have only a few trophies from when I was growing up, but I earned them. And that gives them greater value. Someday I hope to hear my daughter say proudly, "Look what I won!" instead of her usual, "Look what I got."

We need to challenge our children to excel and reward them when they do, but kids also need to know they're loved regardless of whether they win a prize. Sure, it would be nice if everyone's special talents could be given equal praise, but things seldom work out that way.

Ultimately, we aren't simply raising children—we're raising adults. And if we want them to become functioning members of society, they need to learn how to win and how to lose. They need to be able to take criticism, cope with arbitrary decisions and handle setbacks. They need to see that people who work hard to achieve—even if they fail at first—will be rewarded more than those who don't.

That's called real life. And it's fair.

Originally published in the June 2011 issue of Family Circle magazine.