Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, or toughness. It’s the stuff heroes are made of and is something I hope every parent can show their kid(s) during these times. With all the chaos, fear and social distancing happening we need to be able to teach our children how to be resilient in the face of difficult times. The question then is how can we teach our children resilience?
The glass of water is only half full if you see it that way.
The first thing I want to stress when helping children through any hardship is perspective. Teaching them how to look at situations from a broader view will help them throughout life. Think about the “seeing the glass half full” analogy. Parents need to help their children see the brighter side of things even in the darkest of times. Any situation in life can become a learning experience so be on the look out.
A great example would be when your having your toddler share their toys for the first few times. This event is a very big deal to them and causes a stir of emotions inside that can either lead to a peaceful outcome or a not so peaceful outcome. Our jobs as parents is to connect with our children emotionally and understand the situation from their perspective. Explain to your kid that sharing their toy is a good thing, that it helps the other child feel happy like they did playing with it. You could also let them know how proud you are of them for allowing the other kid to play with the toy.
Motivational messages
One thing that my soulmate and me love to do for each other is leave motivational messages for each other to make the days just a little more bearable. I can’t wait for the day when I can leave my little man a message in his lunch box, on his mirror for when he brushes his teeth in the morning or even just a simple text message whenever he’s older and doesn’t want to be embarrassed. 😊 Remember that the smallest things can add up to make a huge difference.
This can be an easy way to open up the lines of communication with a more introverted child. Leaving notes reminding them that they can come to talk anytime makes a parent more approachable and makes them sound more willing to understand. If your child is to timid to talk about the situation face to face then try to have them leave you notes too. Just make sure that anytime they come to you with a sensitive situation that you are understanding and think through it with a level head. You need to show them that people can talk through anything and make it out the other end okay.
Become their hero
Now I’m not saying go out and fight bank robbers, or find a radioactive spider to bite you. This section refers to the way our children mirror us. Our children grow up gaining our attitude, habits, food preferences and often times our foul language. 🤐
The way that we lead our life will have a big impact on how they will live theirs. Considering the social distancing we’re having to do right now they could really use a hero to show them how to smile again. If you see them down in the dumps come up with a fun game to play to keep their mind off things. Missing their friends? Start a Zoom conference call with the other parents so that they can all get together for a little bit. As long as they don’t sit on them all day, video games are also a great way to get them connected with friends. Heck, if they’re tired of looking at their siblings suggest building forts that way everyone will be busy and having fun. Remember to teach them resilience you have to show them that any situation can be turned into a good one.
So now that you have a game plan for the brilliance of resilience go have some fun with you kid(s). Help them smile today and everyday going forward. Stay safe out there!
Days of the Dad 
Always a good skill to learn (for adults too).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sure is 🙌 thanks for the support and hope all is well where you’re at 🙏
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hanging in there, Tyler. 🙂
LikeLike
You are 100% correct. Teaching resilience is definitely a must. The issue we saw way back when is that resilience, AKA toughness, often became conflated with aggression as the times when “being tough” early in life normally revolved around school bullies and the kids’ dealings with them. Resilience also became confused with turning the other cheek and standing strong, as doing so is taught in churches and schools as signs of mental toughness. We had to make sure the kids understood when to stand strong and when to take action since resilience is nothing less than an expression of self-control. Do note that I understand you’re talking about younger kids. To your point, they are never too young to start learning to keep trying to achieve their goals and to stand tall against adversity. As for this post in general, it took me back to the lessons we taught the kids from the early 90s forward. What we taught as “sticktoitiveness,” others taught their kids as reasons to bully incessantly. Dealing with such behavior is when lessons in resilience truly paid off.
LikeLiked by 1 person