Emotional resiliance, the causes, and the effect upon your behavior.

[colditz]

Some people are more emotionally fragile than others ... are devastated for weeks by a gang of teenagers shouting something at them. Others would just think 'Twats' and move on. Others would shout obscenities back, and fume for days ... and still others wouldn't even notice.

Why is this? What causes these huge gulfs between people's personalities? How can we raise our children to be resiliant? How can we become more resiliant ourselves?

Swedes - culturally they have less of a sense of humour than the British, definitely, but not none... it's to do with the language, you just can't get the same nuances in French as in English.

Anna it is a result of their upbringing. If they are like one parent or another it is because they are copying their behaviour.

I would find it very depressing to think that we were mostly the result of our genes because that would mean that we can't change and we are who we are from birth, with not allowance or changes brought about by what we experience. I would like to think that I can change and adapt if I need to.

You can train yourself to be resilient for example.

bump?

Neicie - so if children are brought up by negative, depressed and unconfident parents, is it possible for the children to be the opposite? Or is it inevitable the kids will end up like the parents? (in my case). If this is the case do you mean we can change our behaviours as adults?

This is a very interesting thread.

I think some of it comes from dealing with 'stuff'. I remember a couple of pivotal times in my life when I had a choice a) go mad b) say fuck it. I learned from saying fuck it, and now find it easy to recognise that point and execute the fuck it response.

Over the last 8 years I think having a severely disabled child has increased my emotional resilience. Partly because I've coped well (which feeds on itself- you're coping so you then feel stronger) and partly because its put me in contact with a lot of very strong people who have to deal with far more than I. Having perspective always helps and I get it every time I go into ds1's school.

Also I think parenting. My mother would never allow any wallowing in it. She'll listen and empathise, moaning is allowed, but no wallowingl. She taught me how to 'get on with it'. And actually getting on with it is often the best thing for metal health. Being out and about, busy and engaging with a wide variety of people.

Good post yurt1 - very true.

I agree yurt - I'm much more resilient since having dd - or less willing to spend time worrying about stuff that (to me) just isn't worth it.

My mother couldn't be doing with wallowing though either.

Yes it is entirely possible to be different to your parents. I think anybody can be taught to adapt their behaviour and their approach to life. There is a book called 'Emotional Intelligence' which states just that. Long time since I have read it though so the techniques are long forgotten! Perhaps I should get it out again.

Problem is that it requires self-awareness either on the part of the parent on behalf of the child or as an adult who wants to change their approach. That is not always easy to come by. I do think though, it is a bit of a cop out to say I can't change the way I am because it is in my genes. That seems a bit easy to me and kind hands over responsibility for your life to your ancestors!

As Yurt says you can take control of your reaction to things.

I'm sure an evolutionary psychologist will come along and totally disagree with my view now!

Great thread Colditz. As a pathetically non resilient person who is striving to raise resilient plucky kids I have to say I DON'T think it is all nurture. That's not to say you can't teach techniques, though. If you know them.

imo some of it is due to genetic inheritance but the vast majority is due to early parenting/upbringing, and by early I mean the first six weeks, six months, six years.
after that things can be altered/improved, but not really changed. the patterns are set by the end of the first year imo.

Oliver James is a good one for this, explaining pretty well how we can and do influence our children's emotional lives by the way we bring them up:

this is a great book

I remember making a conscious and determined effort to live my life differently to my mother, when I was about 15. She was depressed, negative and unhappy and I really did not want my life to become the same. And it hasn't! And on a happy note she is now at the age of 81 very positive and grabs all opportunities to do anything interesting that comes her way. So self awareness on both of our parts, but it is possible ...

Can someone tell me if depression and/or anxiety are genetic? My parents were depressed & my sister and I suffer depression. So are we depressed because our parents were/are or is it more of a situational condition, i.e. losing someone can cause depression, or extreme stress, etc? Or both?

I really need to start reading more books don't I?

Jingly, there is no history of depression in my mother's or father's families, as far as we know. I am one of 5 and 3 of us have suffered/are suffering depression. No 'situational' causes to speak of in each case.

Colditz, this is a very interesting thread. Will be back to contribute when the vodka has evaporated from system and I can string together a coherent sentence.

Read this Jingly

Thanks yurt1. I quicky skimmed through it and it is very interesting. I just have to put the DC's to bed, then I will read it properly.

I think both nature and nurture are involved. I was adopted as a baby and have a brother who is my (adoptive) parents' natural child. He and I are very different, and he has more in common with our parents than I do. But how much of that is due to our parents' expectations of what kind of people we would be (and how much of that is due to their gender-related expectations) is something that it's not possible to find out or prove. My brother, like my mother, tends to respond to psychological stress by becoming unwell, loss of appetite etc. I tend to seek distraction and move on as quickly as possible.

I thought they had discovered a genetic link for depression. Dp gets New Scientist and I am sure it was in there.

I am a very unresiliant person, whereas mu mum was the complete opposite, so where did I "learn" it from?

Having said that I had a difficult early childhood, and negative thinking patterns are set up then.

Not sure when I go under it is an attempt to control though.........I would give anything to be emotionally resiliant, it really pisses me off that I am such an emotional weed

I find the nature-nuture debate facinating, and I was always of the opinion that nuture was stronger, but since having my kids, I'm seeing just how much 'nature' is involved, neicie said something about behaviour being learned by being observed and it made me think about a friend, who said that her daughter (12months) was 'just like her Dad' because she would only eat a bit and was a picky eater, thing is, Dad died before she was born. I often see my dc asleep and holding their arms in the same, awkward uncomfortable position that their Dad seems to find comfy. I know it's not quite the same, I just think that there's more down to nature than we give credit for!

Why is that that the way we're going to be for the rest of our lives, is set in stone in the early years when we're all struggling anyway??????

sorry no time to read the whole htread but to pick on Madamez point. We had to cover resilience on our adoption training as it is particularly important to try to foster resilience in adopted children as they add that little bit more to deal with.

It seem undisputed that some degree of resilience is genetic but even within families (my own siblings and I) are a good example, some people roll with the knocks and recover and move on whilst some struggle to move past the problem. So the genetic side of it is really too comples to pin down.

However it is also true that you can foster resilience from a young age.

To quote some of my course...

A childs level of resilience is influenced by

• a sense of a secure base (having good social relationships and feeling cared about)
• self-esteem (based on the indiviuals sense of their own worthiness and competence)
• sense of self-efficacy or self-directedness (a childs sense of internal control).

They proposed suggestions as to how you can acheive this in a chld.

Also forgot to add that I was adopted, so where did it come from.

Firm believer in nature rather than nuture over everything. Completely different from my adopted family, even down to talents and different abilities.

Later found out when I met my birth mother, that I had exactly the same talent as her mother, and followed the same sort of career.
No one in my adopted family ever showed any of this ability, yet it came out in me, despite growing up in a household, where it wasn't even considered

thats interesting fizzbuzz - I find the majority of people involved in some way with adoption strongly favour nature over nurture however I would disagree that it is everything. I beleive that it is possible to raise children to maximise their use of their strngths and talents and deal with their weaknesses more effectively. It doesn;t change their strengths and weaknesses but may change their appraoch to them.

No, I agree it's not everything, nuture is also part of it

No, I agree it's not everything, nuture is also part of it