...resilience:revisited...

Last week I attended a speaker presentation hosted by a local special-education parent advocacy group, on the topic of "Building Resilience for Kids and Teens" and it reminded me of this mini series I wrote a while back:

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-sunday.html

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-monday.html

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-tuesday.html

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-wednesday.html

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-thursday.html

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-friday.html

https://confessionsofthecaffeinated.blogspot.com/2015/03/wow-resilience-saturday.html

At the start of the meeting, during the roundtable intros, I spoke briefly about myself and my son before sharing that my primary reason for attending was because the topic was one near and dear to me and one that I had consistently worked hard at fulfilling.  

I've spoken before (probably ad nauseum at this point!) about how our family motto ought to be

Roll With The Punches

and it's safe to say I'll likely still be thinking-out-loud, so to speak, about this for many years to come.

I think it's important, in a parent-child relationship, to identify not only areas that need to be improved upon but also those strengths you have as a family...as a team.  Speaking for us both (and yes, I've asked him point-blank), our resiliency is definitely high on the list of our family superpowers.  It's not only our individual resilience that I'm thinking about here.  We've both, individually and independently in vastly different ways, become highly resilient, and that's no small thing.  But as a family...as a team...we've built a foundation that allows for resilience together through all of the ups and downs.  We've learned how to take the impact, redirect around it, and find another path to common goals.  

I love that about us.

I love that we come together to protect what we've created and are creating, and fortify the boundaries that keep our path to happiness as clear as possible.  

That night I said to the other parent attendees that happiness only exists where there has been an absence of it.  Think about it.  How would you know what happiness feels like if you didn't have its opposite to compare it to?  How would you be able to truly appreciate the good, if you hadn't made it through the bad?  That's the product of resilience.  That's what happens when you properly cope with your circumstances and move through them...when you allow yourself to bend a little and then bounce back...when you roll with the punches.

There's a lot in this mother-hood to worry about...to doubt...to wish you could re-do.  But at least in my experience, when you 'big-picture' it and step back a bit, there's something about all those missteps and mistakes to be grateful for.  After all, they are the very building blocks of resilience in both you and your child(ren).   I've talked before on here about how seriously I take my role as a parent, and how important it is to give my child all the tools to build the life he wants.  A huge part of that is not only allowing, but encouraging, him to move through failures.  Coddling and preventing and fixing may make you feel like you are protecting your child, but in the end you'll have raised up someone who is completely unprepared for real life.  You'll have raised up someone who breaks down at the first bump.  How scary is that? 

One of the handouts from the presentation included 10 tips for building resilience in children and teens:

1) Make connections

2) Help your child by having him/her help others

3) Maintain a daily routine

4) Take a break

5) Teach your child self-care

6) Move toward your goals

7) Nurture a positive self-view

8) Keep things in perspective and maintain a hopeful outlook

9) Look for opportunities for self-discovery

10) Accept that change is part of living

(Each of these includes a more in-depth blurb, and the full brochure is available from the American Psychological Association here: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/resilience.aspx)