Building Resilience

The parents we work with at Onyx all want the same thing for their kids - they want them to grow up to be happy, resilient adults, who have the skills to experience success at whatever they choose to do with their life. Resilience is the ability to adapt in challenging circumstances; it involves being able to ‘bounce back’ from life’s difficulties, which we all face. While the idea of raising resilient kids feels empowering, the reality is that it involves hardship. More specifically, it involves our kids experiencing hardship, rather than being shielded from it. This can be uncomfortable for parents because it is our natural tendency to protect our kids from pain. If resilience is forged in difficulty, how do we resist the urge to protect our kids' from all of life’s challenges? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Surround your child with warm, responsive adults: These rich relationships help our children regulate their feelings and behaviours, develop life skills, and learn to delay gratification. In addition to parents, other loving adults like extended family, teachers, and coaches, play a crucial role in helping our children grow more resilient when difficult circumstances arise. When your child is corrected by their teacher or coach, consider how you respond. Do you dismiss what this helpful adult is saying, or do you encourage your child to take their feedback and use it constructively?

2. Model resilience ourselves: How we respond to difficult challenges creates a framework for our children to follow. This doesn’t mean you can’t feel or show sadness, anger, or any other uncomfortable feelings – instead, it means modelling how you cope with these feelings. Do you reach out to a loved one to talk? Do you seek out professional help? Do you model hope and gratitude in spite of hardship? Our children learn resilience when they watch us be resilient.

3. Allow your children to experience difficulty and natural consequences: When our kids are learning to walk, we instinctually let our kids fall and get back up - we know this is necessary for them to learn to balance. The same goes for when our kids learn to ride a bike – we put a helmet on them, and eventually let go of the bike! However, sometimes, allowing our children to experience natural consequences feels hard. When the school calls because our child has misbehaved in class, or cheated on a test, do we make excuses for them, or do we allow our kids to experience the natural consequences of their behaviour. Remember that resilience is formed through hardship, not by avoiding it. Clinical psychologist, Dr. Alex Russell, advocates that parents allow their children to experience “non-catastrophic painful failure”. These are mistakes that feel painful, but won’t destroy our children. Even minor mistakes, like leaving library books at home, can be a learning opportunity if we resist the urge to run to the school to deliver the books. Instead, use the discomfort of not having their library books as a way to strategize how they can remember next time. When our kids experience inconvenience or difficulty, we teach them that we believe they are capable of coping with and learning from the presented hardship. This also allows them to adjust for future events.

4. Create a home where it is normal and safe to make mistakes: We are all imperfect, and our children are constantly learning through failure. When our kids fail to meet our expectations, it is important to lovingly correct them. However, we can do this safely by sharing with our kids the times we have failed and how we learned from it. When you are empathetic, your child will be more responsive to your feedback. Even your ‘perfectionist’ kids who aim to get everything right all the time, need this message because no one can be perfect; we need to celebrate when they do something hard and still have something to learn and adjust. It may seem counterintuitive, but a child like this may need to be celebrated when they ‘only get 85%’ on a test. This shows that we are proud of them for putting forth effort and tackling a challenging task. This mindset also nurtures self-compassion, which leads to resilience. Feels a bit negative, re-word to maintain the meaning/message but slightly more gentle!

5. Praise effort over results: Having a growth mindset – the belief that you can get better at something if you keep working at it – is a crucial resilience skill. Mindset researcher Dr. Carol Dweck, found that children who are praised for the effort and strategies they use to tackle a task, rather than the outcome itself, became more resilient and willing to work at challenging tasks. Effort praise sounds like this:

   1. “I noticed how you set aside time each day to study for that test. I can tell you went into that test feeling confident.”

   2. “You were finding that Lego set difficult to build. I noticed that you kept trying different things until you figured it out. I’m proud of you for not giving up!”

   3. “You did really well on this assignment! I saw how you went to your teacher when you didn’t understand what to do next, and that effort really paid off!”

6. Allow your children to problem-solve: Of course, some of the problems our children face need to be handled by adults, but you’d be amazed at the situations our kids can handle when given the opportunity. The next time your child runs into a problem, ask them, “How do you think you can solve this problem?” rather than fixing it for them, or telling them what to do, engage in a dialogue with them about the problem. This will build their confidence that they can face their challenges with a solution-oriented mindset. For example, if your child is running into difficulty with a group project at school, rather than emailing the teacher to sort it out for them, ask your child what they think is the best way to handle it. They may come to realize that they can talk to their teacher or their group members about it. Let’s not miss out on the abundance of opportunities out there for our kids to grow in their resilience through problem-solving.

As parents, our instinct to protect our children is rooted in deep love; however, true resilience grows when we give them the space to struggle, to try again, and to discover their own strength. When we step back just enough for our kids to experience life’s bumps and bruises, while offering steady support and empathy, we’re helping them build the emotional muscles they’ll need for the rest of their lives. Resilience doesn’t happen overnight, but with each small challenge faced, and each moment of encouragement from a caring adult, our children become more capable, confident, and ready to take on the world.

If you need encouragement in your parenting journey, reach out to Onyx Assessments. Our team provides comprehensive psychoeducational testing for children, youth and adults, as well as parenting consultation, to find strategies to navigate the challenges you face at school, work and home.