Passionate Parenting

This article was written by Angela Hutchison, Cape Town South Africa. She is a Parent Coach. This article is published with her permission. Please feel free to contact her This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Hello

 This month I am going to focus on building resilience in our children.  You will notice that a lot of the information includes the skills that I talk about all the time – acknowledging feelings, listening to children, giving children autonomy, setting boundaries.  It is important to say that we do not know exactly what makes one child more resilient than the next in the face of hardship – how much of that is temperament, life experience, intelligence – we do not know.  Resilience is also linked to community – children that feel supported in what they do and more importantly in who they are.

The area where you have the most control is in your own relationship with your child and how you interact with your child – in this way providing your child with a springboard into the world, whatever it may bring.

What is resilience?

"Resilience is the ability to thrive, mature, and increase competence in the face of adverse circumstances”  (Gordon, 1995)

Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein said:

·         Children with a resilient mindset are able to define what aspects of their life they have control over and to focus their energy and attention on these rather than on factors over which they have little, if any influence. 

Remember the prayer (Reinhold Neibuhr-1926):

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Ponder on these words – understanding them is the key to understanding what drives resilience.

An old Chinese proverb says: “Smooth seas don’t make experienced sailors” - It is only when we can practice being resilient that we become resilient.  Give your children practice everyday with the little things to be resilient.  Because life will come at them, in all its glory and all its terror and a parent cannot protect a child from the world, a parent can only help guide a child through it.

I have presented 4 aspects for parents to help build resilience. 

1.     I Get You,

2.     I Trust You,

3.     I Encourage You,

4.     I Contain You

1)   I Get You

Empathy, Respect, Quality time, Acceptance of who they are, Acknowledgement, Nurturing the Nature

As parents we often feel we know better than our children and, yes, often we really do.  Often, we simply think we do.  More importantly, as a parent, it is not really about being right or wrong, knowing better and being wiser, it is about letting our children know that we know they are separate from us, that they are unique and that who they really are deserves respect and a voice.  It is about letting them know that “we get them”, even if we cannot understand the whys.  It is in doing this that we allow our children to believe in themselves.

So…

Nurture the nature of the child you have been given

Listen to feelings, acknowledge them, let the child feel his emotions

Allow a child to be freed from emotion to problem solve herself, before jumping in to help

Remember that bad behaviour often escalates when a child feels unheard and if we hear them, we can curtail this

2)   I Trust You

Autonomy, Problem-solving, Making decisions, Contributing – Constantly allowing them to see themselves as able, capable, competent people and as people who take responsibility for their own lives

Marcel Proust said: “We don’t receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no-one can take for us or spare us”

I’ve sent this information recently in my autonomy newsletter, but here’s a refresher to see it in the context of building resilience:

·        “Don’t just do something, stand there”

·        Haim Ginott says: “The measure of a good parent is what he is willing NOT to do for his child”

·        “Give them practice everyday to know, trust and believe in themselves”

·        Short term pain, long term gain

·        Be a cheerleader, not a rescuer.

·        Teach your children to be solution-focused, not problem focused

·        Teach that with choice comes consequence

·        Let your children dream, let them have hope. 

·        Be a mediator between your children’s conflicts, not their problem solver. 

·        Stay out of the details of your children’s lives. 

There is nothing more rewarding as a parent to watch the face of a child who has struggled with something and then reached the light at the end of the tunnel…….give your children millions of opportunities to do this everyday.

3)   I Encourage You

Affirm the positive, See mistakes as learning experiences, descriptive, not evaluative praise

A little while ago, while running the last few uphill kilometres of a 10km fun run, we were being applauded by the crowd for doing so well, when out of the blue someone on the sidelines yelled to no-one in particular “come on, you can do better”.  Immediately I felt myself flag.  I was going slowly, yes, but I was doing my best in that moment and that criticism literally knocked the wind out of my sails.  Our children deal with negative comments and criticism on a daily basis. 

Somehow we think if we point out the negative, people will learn from their mistakes.  The reality is, if we focus on the positive, no matter how small, we give people the momentum to carry on.

So practically, when praising a child, keep your praise linked to the moment you are in – “you played that piece of music beautifully, it brought tears to my eyes”, rather than “you are such a brilliant piano player”.  The latter creates two issues: “oh dear, now I always have to be brilliant, what a lot of pressure” and “can I believe that statement, because sometimes I don’t play that well?”  Rather localise and describe.

Also when encouraging, listen to what the child has to say first, acknowledge that, and then provide your opinion.  Often a child will be unhappy with a picture and will voice this.  The parent, trying to be helpful will say “but it’s a lovely picture”, immediately denying the child’s feelings and unconsciously sending a message “you don’t know anything”.  Rather, acknowledge how the child feels “you aren’t that happy with the way the rainbow turned out”.  Once that conversation is complete, the parent can say “well, I think…..”  But not as a “but”, in denial of the child.

Watch out for labelling your children – you are so stubborn, difficult, impatient.  We become the labels people give us if they give them often enough.  Again, speak in a momentary context – “you feel very strongly about this point”  Even watch out for positive labelling, if we constantly tell a child he is responsible, good, kind, he may crack under the expectation and again, not always believe it.  Do tell a child “thank you for gathering up all the towels by the pool, that was very kind of you to help”

Children will see mistakes as learning experiences, if we allow those mistakes and ask them what they can do about them.  Oh, you’ve spilt the milk, what can you do to fix that?” (clean up, say sorry)

4)   I Contain You

Boundaries, Discipline to teach, Flexibility, Give choices, allow them to experience consequences

Haim Ginott says to us as parents: “Our responsibility is not to our children’s happiness, it is to their character”

So we “get” our children, we understand who they are.  We are giving them as many opportunities to trust themselves as possible and we are encouraging their every move.  But let’s also be real, they have to live in the real world and in the real world, there are choices we make and consequences we have to live with.  The more we give our children practice with this when they are little, the more they’ll be able to understand this when they’re older.  And so it is essential that to help build their character, we give them boundaries – a container that teaches them how to be strong within the confines of reality.

Discipline comes from the word “disciple”, meaning “to teach”.  Discipline is a guiding hand for our children, not a punitive system that makes them feel bad about themselves, distracting them from the lessons we are trying to teach.  Our ultimate goal is to teach them self-discipline, where our children learn to contain themselves because they understand and are prepared for the consequences of their actions.

So, we have spoken about acknowledging our child’s feelings.  And all feelings are relevant.  But behaviour does need to be managed.  I can be angry, but I cannot hit my sister over the head with a stick.  I need to find another way to manage that anger.  This is where we can guide our children towards resilience specifically – we acknowledge their emotion, we let them know we understand them and then we let them know they have a choice to go forward.  The response to that feeling lies entirely within their power.  Note, we are never denying the feelings, we are validating the feelings and then helping them see that they have a choice to move forward.  By setting limits on negative and unacceptable and hurtful behaviour, they learn that the choice they have can be a positive one.

It is extremely important that we, as parents, communicate our own feelings to our children.  We are often trained in blaming other people for our feelings, which teaches our children to do the same – pass off responsibility for their feelings and then their actions too.  We often say “you are annoying me” or “you are making me angry”.  If we say “I am angry”, we model for our children and show that they, too must take responsibility for their own feelings, resultant actions and lives.

When disciplining, if we offer children choices from an early age, we teach them that they have control over their lives – maybe not the circumstances of life, but the response to it. They learn early on that with a choice, comes a consequence.

Also, when it comes to misbehaviour, if the consequences are directly linked to the behaviour, the impact of the lesson is that much stronger.  Use natural and logical consequences as much as possible, avoiding unrelated “punishments” that will get the child focussing on what was taken away instead of learning the lesson.  And problem-solve with the child, allow the child to take ownership of the solution

Outcome for a resilient child:

·       Children who can see that the circumstances of life happen, and that they cannot change that

 ·       Children who can acknowledge how they feel about the circumstances of life, not avoiding those feelings

 ·       Children who know that they have the power within themselves to respond to those circumstances in any way that they choose – that they have a choice to respond

 ·       And children who know that that response, and not the circumstance, will drive their experience of this life

Love

Angela