Four Tips for Building Resilience in Kids

Most parents would love their children to grow up to be resilient. Resilience is associated with being able to bounce back from challenges, cope with stress and express their emotions effectively. However, kids aren’t born with a manual and the overwhelming (and often conflicting) amount of parenting strategies online and from well-meaning friends or family can make navigating this area particularly tough.

Fortunately, we have done the work for you and gathered four strategies that promote resilience:

1. Good enough is good enough

This is one of the most important message for your child to learn, and promotes positive self-esteem. Your child needs to learn that they can impact the world, and that their efforts are good enough.

For instance, if you ask your child to make their bed but then you re-do it because it isn’t neat enough or if you ask your child to do their homework but then you read over it and change their work, ask yourself‘‘What message is my child getting about themselves if I do this?’’ Often the message they receive is ‘’What I’ve done isn’t good enough’’.

Of course doing this once or twice is harmless, but if this is a consistent pattern of ‘re-doing’ chores or ‘re-editing’ work, it can lead children to feel helpless and to stop trying altogether or to feel they are not good enough and promotes perfectionism to try and be ‘good enough’.

2. Listen to your child

It sounds simple enough, but often when we think we are listening to kids we are either problem solving (‘’Have you tried talking apologizing to Emily?’’) or providing reassurance (‘’Don’t worry, this won’t matter next week, it will be fine.’’)

To really listen you need to stop what you are doing and use validating statements (‘’That’s so difficult… you had a hard day….how disappointing, no wonder you look sad.’’) If your child doesn’t want to talk, then just sit with them (rub their back, allow them time to respond, do an unrelated activity together or let them know you care and you’re in the next room if they want to talk it over).

3. Promote problem solving and decision-making

It can often be tempting to problem solve your child’s problems yourself, as it can be quicker and you may have an effective solution. However, this robs your child of the chance to learn one of life’s greatest skills.

Instead, when your child comes to you with a problem ask them ‘’How can we tackle this?’’ Where you can, let them talk and try to come up with their own solutions (no matter how silly!). Your relationship is the safest place in the world for them to experiment and try new ideas. It can help to ask them what they think someone more capable would do (e.g. an adult they know, a friend they admire or a superhero character) and to brainstorm as many ideas in five minutes that they can!

4. Control your own emotional responses

There is no doubt that children often know how to push their parents’ buttons! But it is vital that you learn to control you own emotional responses to their misbehaviour. Children will copy what you do, not what you say, so if you yell, swear, emotionally shut-down or smack, they will pick up on this and copy you when they get upset.

Instead, try to count to 10, leave the situation temporarily (e.g. say you need to go to the bathroom) or talk to an adult about the situation to blow off steam. 

Helping Your Teen Manage Mean Girls

Adolescence is a time when belonging and approval from one’s peers becomes paramount, as teenagers individuate from the family unit and develop their own identity.

Unfortunately, when there is so much at stake, the temptation to step over others to get to the top can be all too alluring.

Games of power and control are endemic within adolescent peer groups, particularly for females. Males tend to rely on physical strength or humour to determine the pecking order, whereas the hierarchy amongst girls is established through interpersonal interactions and communication. Social exclusion, gossip, the silent treatment, belittling and conditional friendship are all weapons girls may use to reinforce their own sense of inclusion and value.

Too often I hear statements like: “Girls will be girls” and “It’s just a phase.. they’ll grow out of it”. But the truth is, this kind of behaviour extends all throughout the lifespan! Isn’t it better to help your teenagers learn to cope with the nastiness, so they will be equipped to manage it in adulthood? And why should we accept and normalise this behaviour? Can’t we teach our girls to fight against relational aggression, to create a culture of women respecting women and building each other up?

So what can we do to help teenagers navigate the minefield that is the adolescent social milieu? Here are my top tips: