Raising Resilient Children
The share of students among suicide victims in India has grown by 70% over the past decade. The statistics aren’t as alarming as the reasons for suicide. Caught cheating in exams and reprimanded by school authorities, denied getting a gadget from parents, declined a spot at dream university or job.
Isn’t that alarming for us as parents? What are we failing to do as parents that we are raising such a fragile generation?
Resilience – the Parent Fix
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks and challenges. Every parent’s priority should be to raise resilient children who are:
- Ready for the bumpy, unfair ride called life
- Mature and stable to navigate ups and downs
- Able to deal with difficulty, disappointment and distress
“My child should get everything he or she wants, and I am working hard for it.” This is the common rhetoric amongst parents. We believe good parenting is all about giving children an easy, comfortable, and cushioned life. Parental love translates into pampering, over-protection, and indulgence, often due to our unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. This overparenting often results in a sense of entitlement, fragility, and egotism in children.
The classic caterpillar-to-butterfly story is the ideal illustration of building resilience. The caterpillar grows into a butterfly after tremendous struggle, pain and patience; only when the time is right. If it were to break open the cocoon, its wings wouldn't have developed the strength to fly and experience the beauty around. Love must be tender but not without the touch of toughness.
Typical Parenting Mistakes
1)Creating perfect experiences:
Perfectly made beds, perfectly cooked meals, perfectly matched shoes and dresses and accessories, perfect playmates, perfect play dates, perfect school, perfect notebooks, perfect grades, perfect teachers – don’t we want to fill our kids’ lives with these? Well, it’s a disaster in the making.
Life is an unfair, uneven road. Be prepared, and allow your children to be ready for it. Accepting imperfections and flaws is critical to nurturing good relationships and intimacy in the long run. A rude kid on the playground, a loud teacher, or an unfair judgment on the playground – these are all likely. They aren’t problems but opportunities to grow our muscles of adaptability and become resilient.
2)Playing superhero:
While there is nothing wrong with being your child’s superhero, we parents take it too far and are ready to fight our child’s battles. The kids, in turn, learn to play the victim.
Let’s say the teacher scolded your child without real reason. Teach them to go back to the teacher and explain themselves respectfully and humbly. This teaches them how to communicate tactfully, honestly, and respectfully. It is also a great lesson in humility and relationship building. However, if the child’s complaint agitates parents and they choose to handle the matter with the teacher by writing a mail to the teacher or her boss, it teaches the child to be manipulative, entitled, defiant and bossy. Such children grow up needing someone to clean up their mess and do their dirty work without being able to maintain their own relationships and problems.
3)Emotional Contagion:
The child comes home crying; our heart overflows and our eyes fill up. The child appears sad; our heartache becomes unbearable. The child is angry; our temper soars. We mirror our children’s emotions rather than modelling healthier patterns. It is important for parents to not become a part of a child’s emotional drama.Children are young and immature with natural and uninhibited emotions. It is very normal for them to feel sad, angry, hurt or upset at little things. Parents often become a part of this drama instead of using the opportunity to coach, train, and empower them. Stop springing into action owing to your child’s emotional reaction. Tears, like negative emotions, aren’t always terrible. They serve many purposes and help us learn important life lessons. Empathize with them, and allow them to feel the emotion as it is natural and normal at their age.
4)Lacking foresight:
While attempting to ensure their child’s happiness in the here and now, parents often fail to see the unhappiness they create for them in the long run. A child who grows up in a large family has learnt how to adjust, accommodate, share, guard themselves from siblings, and handle an adult’s nagging or rebuke. They have developed skills and attitudes that make them adaptable and durable. On the other hand, children raised in protected, perfect environments grow up ill-equipped to handle shame, disappointment, failure, or frustration. Foresighted parents contain their desire to give in to their child’s desires or overly safeguard them. They give less than they can, don’t get emotionally blackmailed into overindulging, and don’t try to be the cool parent. They understand that parenting is a tough job that requires them to not be their child’s friend or genie. This requires them to expose children to the harsh realities of life and allow them to develop coping skills as they guide from the sidelines.
Tips to Raise Resilient Children
1)Model resilience:
Maintain your calm when stuck in a traffic jam, attending to unexpected guests at an odd hour, or responding to someone’s ungracious behaviour. If you can remain positive as you meet defeat or disappointment, you are giving your children a solid foundation. Children rarely do as you say but never fail to do as you do. Your positivity through adversity is essential to instilling a positive attitude in children. Use a distressing situation to discuss and find its lessons. It will leave you and your child wiser, stronger, and happier.
2)Build Self-Reliance:
Allow children to fight their own battles. Make it a habit for the child to manage their own affairs. Forgot to do homework - don’t jump into the rescue! Let them fight their own battle with the teacher. Win or lose, it’s a gain. If the teacher scolds them, they learn to remember to do it the next time. If she buys the excuse and lets them off, the child learns to find their own artillery to deal with situations. The minute the parent jumps in with a note to the teacher for the undone homework, the child becomes dependent. Whether a bully on the bus or a struggle to be selected for the football team, stay away until necessary.
3)Celebrate efforts and attitude:
While we keep telling our children that they can do anything as long as they get good marks, we end up giving them the message that achievement is everything. We see how children as young as 8 and 9 clamour and claw for half a mark because it defines everything for them. From a very young age children are growing up with the idea that marks are important to our parents. Many even exclaim, “But my mom will be very upset.” This myopia continues through their teens and adulthood. These are the children who don’t blink an eye to end their lives if their marks aren’t as expected, if they haven’t made it to the university of their dreams, or landed the coveted job. Several longitudinal studies clearly indicate that real success comes to those who may not be the best scorers or toppers in school but those who were average and experienced life in all its shades. They develop the right skills, attitudes, and habits that make them successful in life. Waste less energy on their studies and grades and more on their habits, routines, discipline and attitude.
4)Inspire and Guide:
Spend time reading inspiring stories for children. These anecdotes will prove priceless. Parenting is about giving a life lesson whenever the opportunity arises. Discuss people who overcame academic limitations with a strong work ethic and positive attitude, demonstrating the importance of life skills beyond grades and creating a supportive home environment for resilience.
Once a parent, always a parent. You can make your parenting journey worthwhile by helping your child sail their ship and not fearing the storm. The true success of a parent lies in being an admiring bystander in your child’s life. With the right lessons in resilience, you can make this a reality.
