Personal Resilience is Directly tied to Attitude
Resilience is considered by many to be the most important quality one needs to lead a happy life and achieve one’s own set goals. Resilience is defined as “capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties”. There are 4 types of resilience. Psychological Resilience is having the ability to motivate yourself. Social Resilience is your ability to reach out to others for help. Physical resilience is the ability to overcome physical challenge. And lastly Emotional Resilience which refers to your ability to conjure positive emotions when going to a struggle or trying time. In this article we will be focusing on Emotional Resilience, so when resilience is mentioned, it is emotional resilience which is being referred to. Why do some have resilience and others do not? How can some develop resilience in childhood but others who are well into adulthood, have yet to develop this needed quality? Can one develop resilience in adulthood? Why do some children have resilience in some areas, but in other areas/tasks, they lack resilience. As a Public School Teacher I have studied students, these questions puzzled me and led to search for answers. See below articles I have found very useful in my search for knowledge, answers, and solutions to instill resilience in our children at very early ages.
I found that one can be resilient in specific tasks, and not resilient at different tasks. While others can be resilient in all tasks. In my observation in the classroom, I noticed that resilience is tied to an optimistic attitude. How one feels about themselves and their ability in a task or behavior, is directly tied to their resiliency. I observed that what a child believes they are capable of, will determine their resilience and their successfulness in eventually completing the task or achieving the goal. Their thoughts, about themselves and their internal self-talk, is a larger factor in their resiliency. If a child believes they can learn something, or complete a task or achieve a goal, they will be resilient. If a child believes they can not do something, that they are not good at something, that a task or goal is impossible, they will quit trying much earlier, and tell themselves that they are not good at it. This internal conversation is now setting the stage for them having low resilience; they are permanently quitting the task or goal, with the negative belief that it is impossible to achieve.
So, resiliency is tied to attitude. If one has a positive, optimistic attitude there is a better chance they will be resilient in all tasks. If one has a negative attitude, they will most likely not be resilient in all tasks. As parents we want our children to be resilient. We want them to be optimistic that they can achieve anything if they just keep trying if they just stay resilient. We want them to grow up believing that anything and everything is possible. We want them to deeply believe that they can achieve anything, if they stay focused, positive, and resilient.
Why is resilience in children important? Studies have shown that children with higher resilience have fewer mental health problems. Children with low resilience suffer more from stress, anxiety, and depression. Low resilience can make one more susceptible to stress, which in turn can lead to health problems such as exhaustion, lowered immunity, cognitive impairment, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Children who are low in resilience often have low-self esteem and fall more easily to peer pressure because their need for belonging is greater. Children and adults with low resilience often report being unhappy and unsatisfied with themselves and their abilities; they exhibit less optimism compared to high resilience children and adults.
If you are a parent, who dreams of your child growing up and living a happy and fulfilled life; you need to raise their emotional resilience and create in them an optimistic mindset. If you want your children to set goals, and work towards those goals with a strong belief that they can achieve them, you need to raise their emotional resilience and create in them an optimistic mindset. If you want your child to live a better quality of life than you had, you need to raise their emotional resilience and create in them an optimistic mindset. If you want your child to avoid teenage problems such as alcohol, sex, and drugs, you need to raise their emotional resilience and create in them an optimistic mindset.
The easiest way to instill resilience and a positive mindset is to instill these qualities early in life. From birth to about 8 years old, children’s mindset and beliefs about themselves, their lives, and their family are just developing. They are absorbing information from all around them. Every experience they have, teaches them a lesson, and neural connections are being made. The more repeated the experience, or the more similar the experiences, or the more similar the lessons from the experiences, the more the thought will become a permanent mindset belief. Mindsets are not inherited. If children have a similar mindset to their parents, it is because parents exposed them to similar experiences that led them to grow to believe what their parents believe and react as their parents react. John Anderson says “We catch our Mindset from the sum total of our lived experiences”. So as parents, grandparents, and family members, we are helping our beloved children catch mindsets, by the things we say, the experiences we give them, and the reactions and words we use to respond to them. The more repeated, similar the experiences, the better chance the belief will become part of their mindset.
Some simple things we can do to raise our children to have high resilience:
- Let them do things by themselves early in life and let them make mistakes. Then teach them how to reflect on the situation, then encourage them to try again. In doing this we teach them that mistakes/failures are normal and a part of life. When we encounter them, we need to take time to reflect and look for a possible solution.
- Teach them that maintaining happiness a priority. Teach them how learning to do this helps us find solutions. So, when mistakes are made, see them as neither positive or negative. They are just opportunities to learn. This will also teach them that their well-being should be a priority so they should only seek positive choices for themselves and others.
- Have your child do daily positive affirmations that promote a positive self-image and identity and have them also do daily positive gratitudes where they are expressing gratitude for the people and things in their life.
- Have your child learn to meditate. Daily meditation, even if it is just a minute or two a day, can help give your child the self-regulaton they need to see mistakes and failures as what they are; learning opportunities. Meditation can also teach children how to control their thinking and how to choose positive thoughts over a negative thoughts. This will allow them to create a positive internal self- talk dialogue in their mind.
- Stop yourself from trying to solve your children’s problems or take away their unhappiness. Instead teach them the above tips so they can learn how to cope independently. Independence and sense of accomplishments are big emotions that can help raise a child’s emotional resilience levels.
- And my last piece of advice, if you have a child aged 4-8 years old, get them a Wishing Pixies. Using the Wishing Pixies product daily will help you raise your child’s resilience, instill an optimistic mindset, and create goal centered thinking in your child. With just 5-10 minutes a day, you can create customized repeated, similar, positive experiences. You will guide the beliefs that your child grows to believe about themselves, their family, and their life. In today’s world there are so many outside influences pressing on what our children grow to think and believe. Wishing Pixies gives parents an added platform to compete in being the primary influencer in their children’s mindset development.
https://www.metropediatrics.com/well-child-visits/resilience-in-child-development/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8870128/
https://www.firstfiveyears.org.au/child-development/why-childrens-mindset-matters
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/03/growth-mindset-and-childrens-health
https://www.betterup.com/blog/effects-of-low-resilience
https://mindfulbydesign.com/youre-not-born-with-a-mindset-you-catch-it/