Child having troubled childhood

Are you a pushing parent? Do you want your child to be a perfectionist? Today's competition is driving many parent's crazy. They are simply running a blind race against time and going to make their children crippled if are unable to gauge potential of their child. As a parent, think whether you're a prisoner of a troubled childhood? Think again. The emotional pressures not handled properly have emerged into shortcomings which you may be realizing today. Had you experienced ample protection or complete negligence? You need not go through the rest of your life as an emotional cripple. It is possible to bounce back from adversity and go on to live a healthy, fulfilling life. In fact, more people do it than you may think. You need to develop resilience among your children.
Resilience may be an art, the ultimate art of living, and can be developed through proper training. At the heart of resilience is a belief in self—yet also a belief in one's own potential which is larger than oneself. Resilient people do not allow the adversity to define them. They find resilience by moving towards a goal beyond themselves, transcending pain and grief by perceiving bad times as a temporary state of affairs. Focusing on past experiences and sources of personal strength can help you learn about what strategies for building resilience might work for you. 

Experts argue among themselves about how much of resilience is genetic. Resilience is certainly not genetically achieved because it is contextual and develops how you deal with the situation. People do seem to differ in their inborn ability to handle life's stresses. But resilience can also be cultivated. It's possible to strengthen your inner self and your belief in yourself, to define yourself as capable and competent. It's possible to fortify your mental and emotional body. It's possible to develop a sense of mastery over the period of time.

And it's definitely necessary to go back and reinterpret past events to find the strengths you have probably had within all along. A child can not do it. You have to observe closely his/her life events and how he/she react to it. Some evidence shows that it's not really until adulthood that people begin to surmount the difficulties of childhood and to rebuild their lives.

Sometimes it is easier to be a victim; talking about how other people make you do what you do removes the obligation to change. Children find it as good refuge because sympathy can feel sweet; talk of resilience can make some feel that no one is really appreciating exactly how much they have suffered. his is the shortcut to refrain from being resilient.

As we saw earlier, resilience is not a genetic trait. It is derived from the ways children learn to think and act when they are faced with obstacles, large and small. The road to resilience comes first and foremost from children’s supportive relationships with parents, teachers, and other caring adults. These relationships become sources of strength when children work through stressful situations and painful emotions. When we help young people cultivate an approach to life that views obstacles as a critical part of success, we help them develop resilience.

 

Five Ways to Cultivate Resilience in the Classroom

1. Promote self-reflection through literary essays or small group discussions.

Short written essays or stories or small group discussion exercises that focus on heroic literary characters is an excellent way, particularly for younger students, to reflect on resilience and the role it plays in life success. After children have read a book or heard a story that features a heroic character, encourage them to reflect by answering the following questions.

·         Who was the hero in this story? Why?

·         What challenge or dilemma did the hero overcome?

·         What personal strengths did the hero possess? What choices did he/she have to make?

·         How did other people support the hero?

·         What did the hero learn?

·         How do we use the same personal strengths when we overcome obstacles in our own lives? Can you share some examples?

2. Encourage reflection through personal essays.

Written exercises that focus on sources of personal strength can help middle and high school students learn resilience-building strategies that work best for them. For example, by exploring answers to the following questions, students can become more aware of their strengths and what they look for in supportive relationships with others.

·         Write about a person who supported you during a particularly stressful or traumatic time. How did they help you overcome this challenge? What did you learn about yourself?

·         Write about a friend you helped support as he/she went through a stressful event. What did you do that most helped your friend? What did you learn about yourself?

·         Write about a time in your life when you had to cope with a difficult situation. What helped and hindered you as you overcame this challenge? What learning did you take away that will help you in the future?

3. Help children (and their parents) learn from student failures.

In her insightful article, Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail, (link is external) published in The Atlantic, middle school teacher Jessica Lahey touched on a topic near and dear to every teacher’s heart: How do I teach students to learn and grow through failure and setbacks when their parents are so intent on making them a shining star? The truth is that learning from failure is paramount to becoming a resilient young person. Teachers help when they:

·         Create a classroom culture where failure, setbacks, and disappointment are an expected and honored part of learning.

·         Establish and reinforce an atmosphere where students are praised for their hard work, perseverance, and grit — not just grades and easy successes. 

·         Hold students accountable for producing their own work, efforts from which they feel ownership and internal reward.

·         Educate and assure parents that supporting kids through failure builds resilience—one of the best developmental outcomes they can give their children.

4. Bring discussions about human resilience into the classroom.

Opportunities abound to connect resilience with personal success, achievement, and positive social change. Expand discussions about political leaders, scientists, literary figures, innovators, and inventors beyond what they accomplished to the personal strengths they possessed and the hardships they endured and overcame to reach their goals. Help students learn to see themselves and their own strengths through these success stories.

5. Build supportive relationships with students.

Good student-teacher relationships are those where students feel seen, felt, and understood by teachers. This happens when teachers are attuned to students, when they notice children’s needs for academic and emotional support. These kinds of relationships strengthen resilience. When adults reflect back on teachers who changed their lives, they remember and cherish the teachers who encouraged and supported them through difficult times. Do you have a teacher who played this role in your own life? What do you remember about them?

Acknowledgement: Marilyn Price-Mitchell, Ph.D