How will you ensure that you have a 'resilient' child

[TimeToLose8]

I have recently spent some time discussing this with others:

A student support person at a local university bemoans the fact that students have a lot less resilience now, they need so much more support at University - they are so used to mum/dad sorting out their problems that they can't do this for themselves.

Then I spoke to a detective (same university town) who said that the students that found themselves in trouble did not have the skills to work out when they were crossing some sort of 'line'.

And then I walked past a primary school at the end of the day. The majority of the children skipped out, not a care in the world, followed by the pack horse of a carer/parent carrying coat/book bag/sports kit/bike/scooter and I wondered whether this is where it starts.

So, tell me, and more importantly, other parents, how you will be ensuring that your children will be RESILIENT, be able to face whatever life throws at them, and NOT be dependent upon you, the parent, to solve their problems.

As for the 'pack horse parent' - just buy your child a back pack!

Imm not sure I agree with your definition of resilience. I think resilience is the ability to persevere- to bounce back from difficult circumstances

I think what you are describing is two things, a lack of life skills, or an abundance of entitlement, and are quite different

This.

imo a lot of it comes down to temperament, personality and life experiences.

i have one very resilient child and one who isn’t at all.

Unfortunately the resilient child has had a number of health issues and has fought to overcome them. The resilient child is an independent and deep thinker.

The non resilient child has had, so far, a smoother path, is far more popular with friends and tends to sail through life following the crowd.

They are parented the same, have similar sports and hobbies and have been to the same places but are very different people.

i often think my more resilient child tends to have quite a negative point of view and is less disappointed when obstacles appear and works through them. My less resilient child stops at the first hurdle and doesn’t persevere but maintains a very sunny outlook on life.

My non resilient child is far happier than my resilient child and that has been the same for as long as I can remember.

DD is very resilient in some ways and not at all in others. For example the pandemic didn't affect her all,wasn't worried ,didn't mind being off,didn't mind having to go in when many kids didn't etc. However She gets extremely anxious and worried about getting in trouble and she apologises way too much. Doesn't give a shit she didn't get a certificate yet this year, but will have a meltdown over her tshirt getting ripped. Loves roller coasters and rock climbing,trampolining, go ape but is terrified of the monkey bars in our garden. I can go on and it's fucking baffling. I have no idea if I'm doing well or not when it comes to teaching her resilience. All I can do is show her it's ok to fail and make mistakes and let her do just that. Whatever happens ,it's not the end of the world and I do have her back.

No idea how she'll turn out to be as an adult or how I can "fix" the shy,anxious ,worried side of her.

Children are overly infantilised which means they dont get to learn skills (such as part time jobs, sports, doing chores etc)

But at the same time have a lot of adult issues dumped on them to become concerned with (climate change, grooming and safeguarding, bullying and gender issues)

So we dont give them the practice at learning skills/critical thinking/consequential thinking and responsbility but at the same time give them things to worry about that they cant really cope with emotionally

I’ll probably just teach them that each generation gets accused of some sort of major flaw by those that precede them and to ignore any phrases like “snowflake” “not resilient” and so on that get thrown at them and crack on with their own thing. They’ll be fine.

This is a wonderful thread and actually thinking about the most recent comments about genetics I would also maybe add life.

I was raised to be resilient, good upbringing, supportive parents etc.

Solicitor, married, but then lost eight babies and failed IVF three times. But the time I suddenly had mine I was absolutely rocketed with anxiety, and still am.

Had I breezed through children like others would I be the parent I am now? Unlikely. Very interesting

Don't have multiple adverse childhood events such as losing main caregiver twice before you are 3.
You can do all the good things described above, but if deep down your child doesn't have an instinctive feeling of security then it won't be enough.

Resilience comes from security. Absolute security that (controversially) both parents will always be there when needed. That doesn't mean they're always there, a person needs the freedom to make mistakes, but safe in the knowledge that there's a secure family unit to catch them when they fall.

Hardship and adversity does not build resilience. Quite the opposite.

I was/am resilient because my parents did very little to actually parent me. Left alone in the house for full days during the holidays from around age 9, same as in the evenings at the weekend. No support with things like school/exams, mum would move to live with various boyfriends from me being 14/15 onwards

I would much rather my child need extra support and feel love and affection than the opposite to be quite honest!

I think it’s about demonstrating resilience and that involves showing children that some things are difficult and disappointing but that they don’t define your life and you can move on from them.

My children have seen me stressed and upset but I try to start afresh each day and treat it constructively rather than mulling over issues.

My eldest is very independent and resilient, the youngest is a bit more anxious and while we support him, we encourage him not to dwell on it and to focus on what he can change.

You're completely wrong about the packhorse thing. That might create an entitled child. Or it might create a grateful child. (Depending on their attitude and whether they recognise the favour.) It has fuck all to do with resilience. I have worked with many, many, anxious students. Generally they have witnessed anxiety modelled by a caregiver or being 'taught' in some other way to be anxious because the world is a scary place (rape, bullying, other trauma). The ones that do well have stable home lived with resilient parents (who probably model resilient attitudes in the face of setbacks) and have been lucky enough not to experience any significant trauma. Whether their parents carried their bags for them in primary school has fuck all to do with it.

Good suggestions above. I have one resilient child, who bounces back from setbacks, and one who is more upset by them. I do think that doing and sticking to activities which challenge them really helps.

Oh and it's all about self esteem too. High self esteem = resilience, low self esteem means lack of resilience, because you blame yourself for things going wrong and think you are an unlucky person who deserves this stuff and there's nothing to be done about it.

I also agree with the pp that it doesn't have anything to do with carrying bags. If carrying their bags after school makes them feel secure, then that's my job. It happens a lot less now they are older anyway.

Important to remember always that resilience is easy to have when life is not too tough. Some people have a lot to deal with - sometimes just getting up is a major bloody achievement and takes an awful lot. I saw a tweet recently that said resilience should not be confused with survival.

I'm actually not sure that it's true that people are more resilient when things are easy - it can be more complicated than that. I think it's often really hard to tell who will really step up and even thrive in a crisis and that's because it's sometimes people who struggle with the little things who really rise to it when it's a much, bigger harder thing - and then there are people who go the exact opposite way.

Its fairly unusual for children to develop resilience from an experience such as yours, some children do but the majority dont. They develop difficulties with behavioural and emotional development, self esteem, interpersonal skills and often struggle with emotional regulation

It’s a good job that hardship and adversity doesn’t create resilience because what parent would choose a childhood like that for their child in pursuit of resilience as the overall goal?

these threads come up all the time. No one can ever agree on what resilience means in the first place

This is devastating, truly, but I think anyone committed to healing themselves through therapy can learn to develop a secure sense of self and the resilience that comes with that.

In my day it was called character building. Being bullied? It's character building
Given a smack? It's character building
Being shouted at? It's character building
Having the blackboard rubber thrown at you because you were talking in class? It's character building. That's how you build resilience character.

More seriously I think resilience is down to genetics, I don't think it can be taught. I have 2 dc one is very resilient, the other the complete opposite (no discernible difference in parenting them).

Their school is always banging on about taking kids out of their comfort zone to build resilience, well yes if you have a resilient child then challenging them might increase confidence however for others I have no doubt it's the start of building mental health issues.

I think it's just the latest educational bollocks bandwagon another couple of years and it will be something else.

I didn't say people are more resilient when things are easy - I said resilience is easy to have when life is not too tough. When life is TOO tough it causes traumat, and trauma causes MH issues, which make it very hard to be resilient.

You are talking about thriving in a crisis - that is not resilience, that is thriving in a crisis.

I think young adults are rely on the fact that they have a small screen to gaze at for every an answer to every difficulty they face and are not conditioned to think or make decisions for themselves. If WiFi goes off they're stumped.

My parents taught me from a young age to be able to navigate with a map.
Get around on transport.
Budget my pocket money to pay for my weekly outgoings and club subs. This changed to monthly pocket money in my teenage years so I had to budget for school dinners, bus fares, clothes, club subs, entertainment etc. This was an invaluable lesson in money management.
I was also involved in making dinner one night a week, so learned to cook several meals before leaving home.
My father also taught me DIY and gardening skills which have saved significant money too.
I travelled worldwide in my late teens/20's and was grateful for the life skills taught which have gone out of trouble on several occasions.

I'm now passing on similar lessons my children.

I think that modern day parents overthink everything.
But it's not their fault!
There is so much advice, criticism etc etc via well meaning family/friends, social media, health care professionals/teachers it's overwhelming. Everyone has an opinion.
Child rearing as always been tough but it's now a far cry from what it was 20-30yrs ago when mum was supported by family & friends & the occasional magazine article.
I think in trying to improve child rearing we have over complicated it for modern day parents

@YerAWizardHarry yes I suppose that links to what i was starting to think about genetics. Or personality.

You get taught the stuff or don't, but at the end of the day

You were not taught, and are resilient

I was taught? Or parented, but life got in the way and I just cannot to this day believe how broken I am.

The reason I recommend looking into the wisdom of the Stoics is the whole point of that philosophy is to help people prepare for inevitable setbacks or calamities instead of naively hoping they won't happen. Stoics ponder their own deaths until the fear goes away. They do exercises to help them feel contempt for the trappings of wealth and power because they know how easy those things are to lose. They remind themselves constantly that the only thing they can truly control is their response to the events life throws at them. A Stoic mindset would go a long way towards helping young people cope with life's adversities. It would also see off the narcissism and entitlement mentioned elsewhere on this thread.

When I was at university 20 years ago I loved my independence and didn’t rely massively on my parents. That said, there was a significant cohort of my peers whose parents bought them their own car (taxed and insured with a full tank), paid the rent, visited and gave them a full supermarket shop, gave them lifts everywhere, proof-read dissertations, facilitated relevant work experience, supplied a deposit for a flat, helped them print essays etc. These friends have been more successful now than the ones with no parental support who worked part time in Sainsbury’s. Maybe in another 20 years when they’re facing caring duties they may be less resilient but at the moment they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.

I was taught none of those things. I left home to travel around the globe never having shopped in a large supermarket, cooked more than beans on toast or owned a plant.
i got on just fine. Others I met plodded along with me and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I don’t think learning any of those things in your childhood or teenage years matter at all tbh.