Resilience

[Passaggressfedup]

I know there have been many threads in the past about this topic and it usually doesn't end too well. So here I am starting one again!

The reason is that in the last couple of days, I had the chance to reflect on life choices that have turned out to be success stories where resilience played a significant role. It's left me thinking again about the benefits of resilience and how we go about getting to that point.

My family, on the surface, appears very mundane. Middle class, quite stable, no big drama. Behind the scenes, not as calm though. Myself: divorced parents, only child, very difficult relationship with step parents, moved schools 7 times before getting my A levels, a couple of times mid-year. Lived on my own at 16yo. All together, by the time I was 30, I'd moved home 17 times!

My kids had a more stable time in comparaison but still not easy. Separated parents before the age of 3, FT working mum, often stressed with managing everything. Father shouting his love to them but not very present at all in every day life or even when they were with him. No extended family, grand parents living far away and only contact once a year on holiday. Very difficult relationship with step parent.

Yet somehow, we've become very healthy, happy and productive adults. Before anyone questions it. Yes, really! Great jobs, great relationships, good self-esteem, no mental issues besides some very short term depression. We're not the only ones by far.

So it does make me think how much this is a result of resilience building. No severe trauma, just some life difficulties we had to face and learn from. My parents could have sheltered me. I could have sheltered my kids more, but none of us would want our lives different because of who it's made us.

I can't help, inevitably, thinking that as a whole, children and teenagers are growingly more and more sheltered from emotionally difficult events, events that teach them that in hardship, we learn that it doesn't have to hurt so much next time, even to the point that it doesn't hurt as all.

I am NOT referring to abuse. Let's make this clear. I'm talking about the many choices parents make so not to affect their kids negatively when maybe it is doing more harm by not teaching them, with a lot of love and support, that is is okay to face hardship and find the way to cope with it come out of it stronger, so that next time they face similar, they are confident about their ability to manage it.

I think on the whole, many people are increasingly unable to deal with even the most routine and mundane setbacks in life.

I do think there is something in difficulties and suffering that make us stronger. I coddled my AC a bit (helicopter parent) and it showed for a while, how easily they gave up on things that I would have soldiered through. I remember saying this to a friend and she said, but if you swoop in and save them every time, what do you expect?

AC has since had to cope a lot more on their own (as is the way in life as an adult) and they have slowly grown a backbone and are more resilient as a result.

I think the downside of my growth through adversity is that it's made me a more selfish person than I used to be. Because others have shit on me so much, I'm very insular and don't really GAF what others think/want.

So positives and negatives I think.

I agree with you for people who have a gentle life free of abuse and that it is different for those who unfortunately have.

Parenting these days seems to be a constant focus on protecting a child from disappointment at all costs. Even small ones. Resilience is borne from disappointment (amongst other things).

Also - a lack of problem solving skills make them less able to cope with life’s little difficulties.

I used to work in education. Problem solving skills are declining rapidly because parents seem to do everything for their kids. An example that happened regularly: “Miss my pencil is blunt, can I get a new one” when there is a pencil sharpener right in front of them at the table they are sat at.

I think the downside of my growth through adversity is that it's made me a more selfish person than I used to be. Because others have shit on me so much, I'm very insular and don't really GAF what others think/want
This is an interesting point. I can see how it can lead to a more insular approach as you describe it. On the other hand, I see people who lack resilience prone to anxiety, and anxiety is a definite cause of selfiness for self-preservation reasons.

I have been thinking about resilience a lot recently and find it so hard to understand why some people have it and some don’t. Me and my husband are very similar in terms of family life and experiences. However he seems have no resilience at all and falls apart at the slightest set back. I am a very independent person and love doing and achieving things by myself. I find it baffling when people are so delicate when it comes to self determination.

A downside is that I don’t particularly feel close to my parents. They pushed independence and self reliance to the point when I feel like I don’t really need them. My mum often moans that her children never confide in her but it’s a problem of her own making.

With my own children I think I am struggling to get the balance right. I probably do too much for them as I don’t want us to have the same distant relationship I have with my own parents.

a lack of problem solving skills make them less able to cope with life’s little difficulties
I didn't think about that but yes, people I know who are most resilient seem to have very good problem solving skills.

This thread is not about pointing fingers because let's face it, putting or letting our children be in a panful/stressful/anxious situation goes against all what our inate instincts tell us to do. I think its about circumstances.

One thing my parents and I had in common is little time, physically and mentally. We all had to get on with life. My parents worked in career jobs and dealt with stressful times as a result. Redundancies, frustrations with hierarchy/ managers, restructures, moves to new locations and the same happened to me. Children had to fit around it all and so we did.

My mum moved suddenly 5 hours away, taking me, in November when I was in year 7... to a smaller area where all the kids came from the sane primary and had long formed their friendships. I felt so isolated, alone, and desperately missed my friends, comforts and habits. I remember how sad and desperate I was. But time heals and I did make friends, fantastic friends. And I got to love that new life...until my mum had to move away again after 3 years and I had to start all over again!

It's not like she didn't care. She listened, she helped with dealing with my every day struggle. We talked every evenings about our days, but from her perspective, she had no there choice and she trusted (or didn't think much!) that it would just be OK in time.

Nowadays, parents seem to have more heads pace to analyse and consider every options, which inevitably lead to taking the one that will inflict the least stress on their xhildren, often resulting in more stress for them though. Or dealing with dreadful guilt when they do go ahead and see their kids struggling as a result.

A downside is that I don’t particularly feel close to my parents. They pushed independence and self reliance to the point when I feel like I don’t really need them
Very good point. This is also the case for me. I also see it with my children. They don't need me as much as adults as the average young adult their age, although my youngest is still working on his resilience as they are naturally more emotionally needy.

It is maybe a price to pay but a good one I think. I don't want my kids to need me regularly, they just know I will always be there when they do need me, and that's more than enough for me. It is also a benediction not to have to constantly worry about them as some of my friends do about their kids in their mid-20s or older.

I'm not a fan of resilience talk. I think it's massively overegged mainly because a lot of people make a lot of money out of resilience training and consultancy.

I think most people who consider themselves as having built up resilience are just describing more trait based hardiness.

I am pretty 'resilient' but actually I just have high levels of hardiness. I don't need to bounce back from stressors because I interpret them differently from the start.

And there's a lot less money to make from hardiness because you can't really change it that much.

I grew up in the 80s/90s and don’t feel like I learned any resilience. It was a bit of a golden age in some ways. No one’s parent we’re divorced, nothing ever happened. I don’t know what all these difficult situations I was meant to have gone through.
The main thing was no one cared if you were bullied and in fact that has destroyed my self esteem for life. We were told to get over it.

I think different brains react to different situations differently. I don’t think it’s something you can force.

Yes its hard to know what’s best. I feel so lucky that I seem to have resilience (I also moved house a lot!). However I do notice a lot of regret more on my mums side rather than mine. She seems to worry about her adult children a lot anyway even though none of us really confide in her or ask her for help. There is not a lot of warmth in our relationship and I think that is a shame. I see other people finding so much comfort from their mums and wish I had that. I also want my children to have that.

I don't think the life challenges even need to be as large as yours OP, to develop resilience. I think day to day not jumping to rescue your kids from their own small mistakes or preventing them from facing tiny hardships is hugely beneficial. I got flamed on a thread recently when I made a point about this. The OP had stood in the wind and rain at her daughter's bus stop at the end of the school day, waiting for 40min to meet her off the bus to give her a hood for her coat which she'd forgotten to take that morning. Home was 200m from that bus stop.

I think we should give them more responsibility and more real world freedom, more information, more opportunities to deepen trust, more non judgemental listening. And we shouldn't feel like a failure when we show anger towards them. Like you, I'm not talking about abuse, but parents feel awful when we get mad at the annoying, dangerous or stupid stuff our kids do. Kids need to see their adults as falible humans who aren't perfect, have emotions, are able to calm down, and repair relationships while holding the reasonable line of "don't do that again, I'm very cross with you. Yes of course I always love you, you daft bat. Now go fix that problem you created. I'll help if you get stuck"

Are you suggesting that people who struggle with anxiety do so because they haven't had hard enough lives?

Research is increasingly showing that there is a genetic component to resilience. That said, life experiences are important too.

I lost both my parents young and had to become very independent early on. I had zero childcare when I had my kids and managed to start a successful business when they were toddlers. My best friend on the other hand had both parents helping her with child care (picking up her child every day from school etc) and she struggled to even manage working part time. Her parents still bail her out constantly now. She often says to me she doesn't know how I managed to do it.

Its simple- its because I had no choice and even though my circumstances were very sad, the positive side was it imbued me with a strong sense of confidence, that I am capable, and can manage alone. I say this not to diss my friend, she is lovely, but I strongly believe that her lack of confidence/resilience is due to the fact that her parents completely coddle her, they are always there to pick up the pieces and she has never ever had to cope with anything without them flying in to help her. As a result, she has never had to problem solve herself out of anything and in my opinion it has been to her own detriment.

Sport (I write it every time on these threads!).

I had a very engaged father. His job was physical but every day he would come home and take us into the garden to play - games or sport. As a child I was in the netball team, played football and was just always outside; always doing some kind of sport. That is where I learned drive, resilience and team spirit. That, and the old fashioned attitude my father had of just keep going has taken me over life's tough chapters.

Sport and activity drums into you that you get up, dust yourself down and keep going. I do not think the subject of sport can be underestimated for children. I think it's vital, actually.

I had a very happy childhood so I am not in any way qualified to speculate on how any child living with everyday abuse from some angle of their life can learn resilience. I think that must be very hard. I think you have to be taught it in a positive way (i.e. not just someone telling you to pull yourself together and get over it.)

Strong emotional connection between parents and adult children is different to an adult child consistently depending on them (and defaulting to them without thought) for their own emotional or practical needs. A young adult child can certainly have a warm and loving relationship with their parents without needing them like an actual child needs a mummy. I think it's really difficult, often, to separate the emotion "love" from our perception of ourselves as a good mother and providing "acts of service"

This . There wasn’t such a thing as a label of ‘ resilience’ , people just dealt with what came their way in the best way they could . Nowadays everything / everyone has a label that enables them to not cope with life or the usual challenges within it . The constant reference to mental health has become self prophesying.

I would agree. I've worked in teams that managed a large workplace training programme. The main one was in a business where staff would be very well qualified, but under quite a lot of stress and seeing a regular practice of restructuring.

The response was to ensure there was 'resilience training' on the programme. Although not a terrible thing, most people who were given the training would comment that it was the sense it was put on the individual, and not trying to address the factors that suggested you would be in the crosshairs for that training because of probable restructures, that was pretty ironic (and many would be actively trying to leave - logically).

In recent years, my elderly mum has developed anxiety. It arose when her husband was extremely ill 10 years ago, but it comes through in the form of an anxiety about driving or being driven that was never in the frame before. She cannot help this and it does affect her life. She sometimes manages to travel, but not without a lot of medication. The timing seems clear to me, but the displacement, presumably coming from a brain under immense stress that you cannot really affect by your own actions, doesn't.

My family, on the surface, appears very mundane. Middle class, quite stable, no big drama. Behind the scenes, not as calm though

I think this is the norm for most families though as in to have some issues as opposed to deep trauma.
I think the difference today is perhaps we try shield & shelter dc too much

Are you suggesting that people who struggle with anxiety do so because they haven't had hard enough lives?
I wouldn't put it exactly like that but in essence yes.

I don't see anxiety as a horrible state of mind to be avoided at all cost. I see as an inevitable emotion we are all bound to experience at some point in our lives and the earlier we are exposed to it, the easier it gets as we age.

Children are born naturally resilient. We lose it as we are exposed to it and realised that there is a much more pleasant emotions to seek. The earlier we are faced with it, the easier it is to learn to cope with it and the less scared we are to be exposed to it.

That and the fact that children have - should have - parents there to kiss the pain away - metamorphicly - rather than face it in a more lonely way as we get older. Sadly, when parents themselves struggle with their own resilience, they might not be equipped to reassure their kids that it is okay to feel as they do and that it will get better.

I really do think that building resilience as an intended intention is very very hard. It is not so hard when there are fewer choices. Which leads me to also wonder: is society systematically doing the right thing by giving people /parents access to an extent of choices when the instinct is to lick the choice that appears best in the short term but isn't forcibly so on the longer term.

Are you one of my siblings?!? I could’ve written this verbatim!

I largely agree. Ive been through some shit, and that helps me reframe tough times as 'ive survived far worse' and also the knowledge that even when things feel like the end of the world i can recover from them. Ive made a real effort to rause my children to be resiliant because i see every day adults who arent resilient knocked off their feet by pretty small things, and generalky not doing well at life, but its a hard balance because i want to protect them from shit too!

I expose them to low levels of risk and opportunities to solve problemd for themselves. We do things lile wild camping as a family, i get then to plan journeys on the trains and tubes or comr up with solutions when things get cancelled - that sort of thing.

But it is a hard balance and not an easy thing to teach. I do despair though, i see so many teens and young adults mollycoddled and babied by their parentd and i do wonder how these kids are going to cope with the real world

Sport
Sport as a whole or competitive sport?
Because competition seems to be seen more and more as a negative in school and by parents. For exactly that reason: shield the children from the upset that inevitably comes with losing at time, or having a bad game despite preparing very hard for it, or letting the team down etc...

I don't see anxiety as a horrible state of mind to be avoided at all cost. I see as an inevitable emotion we are all bound to experience at some point in our lives and the earlier we are exposed to it, the easier it gets as we age

I completely agree. Fight or flight is an amygdala response to threat and therefore a completely natural human response- we would be dead without it.

This idea that we should never experience anxiety or in fact, any negative emotion at all is unrealistic. Anxiety is normal - the key is that you can process it properly so that it doesn't become overwhelming or chronic.

The way to practice overcoming anxiety is to face it. For example, if you have a fear of public speaking, the only way to get over it is to practice public speaking ( in gentle stages, I am not advocating for the flooding technique but gentle every day practice). Avoiding public speaking doesn't get rid of the anxiety, it makes it worse because behavioural avoidance perpetuates the fear cycle so the fear grows.

If you got A-Levels after 7 school moves, you were born with intelligence, that gets you a huge step ahead. You were born in to a middle class family, another protective factor for you. I'm guessing you had a warm home, adequate nutrition and appropriate clothing. You managed living alone at 16 and are married, I'm guessing you have good executive functioning and can get judge people's intentions to avoid being victim to exploitation, another huge strength. That executive functioning gives you the ability to meet your own needs-manage your finances, set up and pay bills, keep your home clean,cook a meal etc.
Many of the people who don't do 'well' in life aren't born with the privilege you were born with. People born into poverty are on the back foot with health from day 1, less nutrients, higher risk of bullying and social isolation, not gaining any cultural capital, instability and anxiety around not knowing when the next meal will be. Children with learning difficulties have ongoing struggles at school, many will give up trying, some will continue to try but could never achieve ALevels and a high flying career. People born with autism or learning difficulties are vulnerable to exploitation as they can't judge peoples intentions or have that instinct we have that keeps us safe, that can cause huge amounts of trauma, they can have poor executive functioning preventing them being able to maintain a home or live within a budget.
You have been very privileged, you've been born with privilege that has helped you succeed. People lacking resilience aren't people who have been shielded from trauma, they're the people in society who have been disadvantaged and experienced high levels of trauma that has damaged their ability to cope with adversity.