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.
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.
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?
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,
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
