Improving Your Child's Resilience

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children.

One of these is roots, the other, wings.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

 As parents, we want to do the very best for our children. I hasten to add though, that we don’t necessarily want to give them everything that they want. How are we going to develop their character, if we do? It’s a fine line between giving our children the best opportunities and knowing when to say, “no” to them.  It may seem a little harsh, but in order to develop character, instil self-discipline and build resilience in our children, it is exactly what we should do from time to time. It’s good to say no to our children and it is even better to develop skills that allow our children to personally resist the natural urge to give into and satisfy all of their wants and desires.

Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, Walter Mischel’s 1960 experiment with 4 year old kindergarten children being asked to delay eating a marshmallow while the researcher left the room, in order to have two marshmallows later when the researcher came back into the room, found that only thirty per cent of the young children could resist eating the marshmallow. Most of the children could resist for some minutes when the researcher left the room but most ate the marshmallow within five minutes and only thirty per cent could wait fifteen minutes until the researcher returned to the room. More recent follow up with these people, found that they were more academically and socially competent in their teenage years and were more successful in their adult lives, if they were able to suppress their desire to eat the marshmallow for fifteen minutes until the researcher returned to the room.

So what exactly do we mean by building a child’s resilience? How can we do this? People who can deal with adversity and move forward, persevere and adapt when things go wrong, or bounce back from a difficult setback, or experience are said to have more resilient than those who struggle emotionally for a long time after a difficult time or adversity.  Resilience is the ability to:

·         Overcome obstacles in childhood

·         Steer through everyday adversities that befall us

·         Bounce back from setbacks that occur; and

·         Reach out to achieve all that we are capable of achieving in life.

According to researchers Dr Shatte and Karen Reivich (2002), there are seven essential skills for overcoming life’s obstacles. Much of their research builds on the work done by internationally renowned professor of Positive Psychology at Pennsylvania University, Dr Martin Seligman’s work in Learned Optimism. How is optimism related to resilience? Our beliefs about the way things will turn out have a significant influence on the ways in which we respond to stress and adversity. Optimistic people expect that in the end things will turn out well, despite the difficulties they may face in the present. Pessimists on the other hand, tend to view the future as uncertain at best and, at worst, filled with continued difficulties and insurmountable struggles. Optimism affects our well-being, our physical health and overall level of happiness.

Without oversimplifying these seven essential skills of resilience, they can be summarised as follows:

·         Being in charge of our emotions – one simple and effective method to help children (and adults) be in charge of emotions is the old tried and true method of three deep breaths. When we slowly breathe into the count of three and exhale to the count of five and do this a few times, we experience an amazing calming effect.

·         Controlling our impulses - research around resilience indicates that those young people who can control their impulses are more successful in a range of social skills that in turn build resilience in us. Just to be clear, being resilient does not mean that we don’t act on our impulses, but rather, we control our responses.

            One strategy is to teach children how to control their impulses. For example when one sibling             makes a comment that upsets the other, we could encourage them to follow these              simple  steps:

·         Stop,

·         think,

·         breathe,

·         think of three responses before saying anything; and

·         then respond.

 

·         Analysing the cause of problems – this is the ability to analyse problems accurately and decide what the cause of the problem is. “Accurately” is the key word here, because researchers have found that what we think about a stressful events or problems affects how we feel about these events and what we do about them. Teaching children to identify the problem and come up with some solutions to the problem is a great way to build resilience. 

·         Maintaining realistic optimism – this is a belief that things can change for the better, that there is hope for the future and that you can control the direction of your life. The control we feel with accurate and flexible thinking helps to maintain a sense of optimism for the future. Gentle reminders to children can help adjust any faulty thinking when they say things like “this always happens to me” thinking or “I never get to…” – just remind them of when they did not have this happen or when they did do something.

·         Having empathy for others – empathy is understanding what it’s like to walk in another person’s shoes or the ability to understand the feelings and needs of another person. Young children learn when parents recognise their feelings by saying, “You look happy when you play with that.” Or “Your friend looks a little sad today.” Research shows that being understood and understanding others are important to the growth of resilience.

 

·         Believing in your own competence – is the belief that we have what it takes to tackle most of the problems we face in our daily lives. We feel effective in the choices we make and actions, knowing what we do matters, and to keep on trying even when situations are challenging. Giving children choice helps them feel that they have some control in a situation and control over what they do. For example: “Do you want to help me in the garden or help your dad wash the car?”

·         Reaching out – is the ability to take on new opportunities that life presents to us. Seeing mistakes as a learning opportunity, makes it easier for us to take risks and try new things. Giving children the opportunity to succeed, while still being challenged, increases their confidence. Also, reaching out is about asking for help when it’s needed.

References:

Mischel,W., Shoda,Y., Rodriguez, M.L., “Delay of Gratification in Children”, Science, New Series, Vol. 244, No.4907, May 26,1989, 933-938.

Reaching In Reaching Out Resilience Training: http://www.reachinginreachingout.com/documents/Website-RIROskillstrainingdescription-Nov-13.pdf
 
Reivich, K. & Shatté, A., (2002),  The Resilience Factor: 7 essential skills for overcoming life's inevitable obstacles,  New York, NY, US: Broadway Books. 342 pp.
 
Seligman, M.E.P., (2011), Flourish, New York, USA: Atria Paperback.

Improving Your Wellbeing - Strategies that Really Work

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today,
And creates a vision for tomorrow.

(Melody Beattie, author)

Have you noticed that it’s often the simple things in life that bring us the greatest happiness and sense of well-being? Talking to a close friend or loved one, laughing at a joke, smiling at our pet dog or cat as it plays, noticing the warmth of the sun on our skin, walking along the beach, picnicking in a National Park, or staying in bed on a cold morning reading a good book can all make us feel better. There are many simple pleasures that improve our sense of well-being and make us happier, so why is it that the moment is quickly lost and we struggle to hold onto that magical moment or time of bliss? Happiness, it seems, is a transient emotion or state of being that can evaporate quickly, so start by writing down those special moments and show gratitude for what you have.

Positive Psychology proponent, Professor Martin Seligman suggests a simple exercise to lift our mood. He calls it the “Three Blessings” or the “What Went Well Exercise?”.  This exercise takes no more than ten minutes to write down three things that went well during the day and the reason why they went well. Try it for at least a week to see if your mood improves. I guess it’s part of human nature to focus far more on what went wrong rather than what went well, it’s how we have survived over the millennia.  Flip this notion on its head though, and focus more on what goes well in your day. (Go to Seligman’s free website: www.authentichappiness.org for more ideas and surveys to monitor your well-being.)

Acts of kindness are contagious and research shows that being kind to others increases our own levels of well-being as well as the well-being of others. Try some of these: give a compliment, hold a door open for someone, make someone laugh, volunteer for a charity or worthy cause, take time to really listen to someone – hold eye contact for the entire time, leave little gifts or cards for work colleagues or friends and show your appreciation for someone’s actions, write a letter of gratitude to someone who made a real difference in your life – let them know how much they helped you. Random acts of kindness are wonderful too, but why not start with the people we know best?

In a recent Time article, “The Mindful Revolution”, Pickert notes that scientists have been able to prove that mediation and mindfulness training can lower cortisol levels and blood pressure, increase immune response, and have an impact on the structure of the brain. Technology has made it harder than ever to focus on just one thing at a time. We are all multi-tasking way too much. Mindfulness is a skill that helps quietens our busy mind so we focus more on the present moment and less on what’s happened or what we think is going to happen. Mindfulness, like meditation requires regular practice.

When Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking, met with Eckhart Tolle to explore his philosophy for happiness, Tolle made the point that the most important thing is not to be continuously lost in this mental projection away from now. Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. The result is that we can ‘miss our whole life’ by focussing on the past or the future and never the here and now. Without really noticing it, we treat the future as intrinsically more important than the present. So stop and think about the ‘here and now’ and keep your attention there.

Try asking yourself whether you have any immediate problems right now. Often people are surprised to find that their ‘problems’ are things that they are worried about happening in the future, and in many cases, are not likely to happen at all. Maybe it’s a truism, but 99% of what we worry about never happens.  Burkeman suggests that if we took the advice of Seneca and imagined the worst-case scenario, then perhaps we would be more surprised and happier when things don‘t turn out as badly as we first thought.

Author of “The Art of the Idea”, John Hunt, contends that everyone falls into one or two categories. A ‘sunriser’ gives out energy, a ‘sunsetter’ sucks it away. Sunrisers go through life open to the idea that the best may still be coming while sunsetters are heavy in the knowledge that the best is past – for this person, the future is a calibrated decline – always sloping downhill. Are you a sunriser or a sunsetter? Remember the old Winston Churchill adage: An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty, while a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. Maybe it’s time to switch your thinking? Seligman’s research found that optimists enjoy better health, live longer and are happier than their counterparts.

Note to Self:  

Strategies that really work in improving your well-being

·         Show gratitude for what you have.

·         Practise acts of kindness – it’s infectious.

·         Write a letter of thanks to someone who helped you.

·         Be in the present – the ‘here and now’.

·         Every day, write down three things that went well that day and why they went well.

·         10 to 30 minutes meditation every day.

·         Be a ‘sunrise’ person not a ‘sunset’ person.

 

·         Download some Apps like Headspace, Happier, the Smiling Mind and Gratitude Journal and use them daily.

·         Smile at everyone you meet. You, and they, will feel better for your smile.

     

       Yesterday is but a dream,
Tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,

      And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

            (Kaladisa)

References:

Burkeman, O. (2012). The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking. Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company.

Kluger, J. (2013, July). The Happiness of Pursuit. Time, V.182, No.2, 20-30.

Hunt, J. (2009). The Art of the Idea: and how it can change your life.New York, USA: powerHouse Books.

Pickert, K. (2014, February). The Mindful Revolution: The science of finding focus in a stressed-out, multitasking culture. Time, V.183, No.4,33-38.

Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Flourish, New York, USA: Atria Paperback.