The best Way to Foster Resilience in Your Kids

Not too long ago I talked about what it means to embrace the ‘panda‘ school of parenting. I admitted that I’m a bit of a panda dad. My take is that when we encourage kids to find their independence and support them in doing so; we develop much healthier adults than by imprinting our own egos and sense of identity onto them. Empathy and compassion aren’t taught in books and neither is resilience, they’re taught by experience; so how do we help our kids foster their own sense of these qualities?

By living life

Education comes in all different forms and life experience is of course one we shouldn’t neglect. However, kids are kids and exposing them to unnecessary hardship is selfish and needlessly cruel (although so is overly sheltering them).

Playing and doing activities with your children is critical to their development. It allows you to bond and it fosters communication between child and parent.

That’s fantastic!

Keep doing that

At the same time, independent learning, play and activities are vital too. This can be craft, puzzles, games or personal projects. In doing this, you’re enabling your child to succeed or fail on their own. Now, some kids will struggle with this. Especially children with certain developmental conditions. So, be mindful.

How you do this, depends on your child’s capability. Throwing them in at the deep end and they’ll feel like they are drowning. Even if you’re there. So, remember that every kid is a person and whilst you shouldn’t dictate the situations they are in, be aware of them – especially if it could be a trigger for bigger issues.

Failing is important but at the same time, you mustn’t fuel their anxiety. This should go without saying.

What it all comes down to

Is encouraging them to act on their own but praising the act of doing rather than the end result. If your child practices hard for something, you praise their practicing and effort rather than the end result. Dedication does not always lead to immediate success but it does successful create productive and strong people.

The successes and failures along the way lead to more respect for others doing the same; thus compassion and empathy is formed. However, the real empathy and compassion is built from them finding their own failures and overcoming them. In the grown up world, we fail. It happens. We trip up in many ways but we learn how to overcome these hurdles and press on. We also understand that others struggle too. I would say most of us do.

Now, I’ve been saying succeed and fail. These word choices are deliberate but not what I mean, nor the reality. Having things not go to plan and failing are the same thing and having things go to plan and learning nothing is hardly achieving success. That is the lesson you want to teach, you want to break away from ‘success and failure’ which (trust me) is damaging well into adulthood.

When they get stuck, ask them if they need help (don’t assume so) and respect their answer. Don’t define the solution, question as to how you can help and work with them (not for them) to solve the problem. If there isn’t a way to resolve then that’s okay too, these are all valuable lessons learned via a little independence.

What your child learns in these scenarios is to reach out when one is struggling, that it is ok to ask for help, that teamwork lessens complications and that you can be independent and together from people at the same time. These are the seeds of compassion, empathy and personal growth. By allowing experiences like this, I believe and involving yourself as much as your kids ask, you help them foster that sense of resilience, empathy and compassion for themselves in the most meaningful way.