4 Steps To Building Resilience

This is me, in a rare show of cooking resilience. This was the 6 layer rainbow cake, which took 6 hours to complete.

So China is constructing – from scratch – a bunch of islands in the South China Sea.

Huh.

I can’t find the motivation to construct – from scratch – the chopped salad from Maggiano’s. And it’s not from lack of desire. I love that salad. But only enough to google the recipe, see the 36 required ingredients and give up.

If I’d been born in China, the government would have deported me immediately for lack of work ethic. All the parenting books say it: resilience is what we’re supposed to teach our children.

This is because kiddos will have some life goals that won’t be easily achieved. They will try and they will fail. When this happens, they should not take their recipe book and go home.  

They should try and try again. Just like those Chinese island builders who are facing down rough seas and mad neighbors (the Philippines and Vietnam aren’t so psyched about the new island thing).

Here’s how you build resilience in your kids (according to the parenting books, not guru girl, who clearly has some learning to do on this subject).

 When your kiddos encounter a problem:

1.      Do not leap in to rescue them. Instead say, “How are you going to handle it?”

This is possibly the hardest question in the human language for parents like me to utter. But it is important. The problem is your kid’s. Not yours.

2.    Help brainstorm. When your kid says she can’t possibly think up any ideas to tackle the problem, respond,”Do you want to hear what some other kids have tried?”

Then succinctly offer some ideas. Finish up with the key phrase,”What do you think?”

3.    Listen & Encourage. Listen to what your kiddo says. Give her parting words of encouragement. Something like, “You got this.”

4.    Do this even if you think her plan is questionable. The point is she’s come up with a plan. On her own. One that she’s going to try! This is cause for celebration! 

 (Of course if her plan is truly terrible or dangerous, you want to gently guide towards other solutions.)

5.     After the plan has been instituted: Hug. Either the plan worked or it was an epic fail. Either way, give your kid a hug. Of congratulations or solace.

In the latter scenario, go back to Step 2 and come up with a new plan. It helps to also share your own epic fails at this point.

Frighteningly, we are the role models for our kids. They need to know we’ve messed up and yet bounced back to be the stunningly well- adjusted adults they admire.

Warning: once you tell your kid your own stories of defeat they will repeat them. A lot. It will be embarrassing.

It’s worth it if we can grow a generation of little people into the kind of big people who have a resilient, can-do attitude. The kind that build islands out of oceans.*

* Only, unlike China, let’s not use ours for military purposes. Maybe our new islands could host puppies and kittens instead.