Parents can install confidence and competency in children by letting them make harmless mistakes and teaching them to be problem solvers without accommodating their every wish.
Talk about stress: In the movie “Frozen II,” Elsa and Anna need to deal with natural disasters, calm a magical salamander, broker a truce among warring factions, tame a water spirit and thaw Elsa by breaking up a dam. Yet, our heroines are resilient and save the day, and their determination and resourcefulness make them role models for children watching the movie.
In normal times, our children are dealing with situations like moving to a new home, conflicts with friends or tests they don’t feel ready to take. However, these stresses may seem just as challenging as Elsa and Anna’s experiences if our children haven’t developed resilience.
In today’s coronavirus pandemic, resilience takes on extra importance. Broadly defined, resilience is the ability to come back from difficult experiences, ranging from stress to trauma. Some call it grit, or the ability to try, encounter roadblocks and keep trying. When our children have resilience, they have more tools to respond to the inevitable challenges of life in confident, productive ways.
As a mom during COVID-19, I want to create a new normal that retains my children’s sense of safety, leaving room for them to grow their resiliency. Throughout my career, my children have heard me talk about illnesses and diseases, and they understand their mother’s role as a Kaiser Permanente physician. Now, however, they are personally coping with a health threat that directly impacts them, thankfully not because of illness but due to separation from family, school and their friends. If your children are like mine, they need their resiliency to help them through this difficult time.
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician, says that resiliency involves seven components: competency, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control. When a child feels competent in one situation, it creates confidence that an unfamiliar occurrence can be handled as well. Having a strong connection to family and friends steadies children and makes it more possible for them to contribute to the well-being of the group. When children can cope, their success extends to include a feeling of having more control over the rest of their lives.
It is helpful to remember that children don’t react to stress in identical ways. A physician and researcher, Dr. Thomas Boyce describes children as either dandelions or orchids; that is, most children are sturdy like a dandelion, but about 20% of children are more sensitive to good and bad times. The so-called orchids need routine and reassurance more than the dandelions. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work well for every child.
The classic advice about parenting is to put on your own oxygen mask before putting one on your child. In this case, we parents must develop our own resiliency before we expect it of our children.
As you work on your resilience, I offer one caveat: Stay real. Talk in an age-appropriate way about your actual feelings with your children, as they can easily detect when you are not being truthful. Also, give yourself grace as a parent and as a person.
Our children need to understand how to navigate small upsets like a torn T-shirt or large difficulties like the coronavirus or a parent out of work. Some of the ways we can install confidence and competency in our children include letting them make harmless mistakes and teaching them to be problem solvers without accommodating their every wish. We can encourage our children to do the next good thing rather than let self-doubt take over. Kaiser Permanente’s website has several helpful articles: k-p.li/2SmznaG and k-p.li/2Sken49.
My mantra is that together, we’ll figure it out. We’ll get through this pandemic as well as the teen years, handling whatever comes. Right now, my children know they must be polite and wash their hands a lot, but s’mores in the back yard have become part of our stay-at-home routine in acknowledgment of their need for comfort and fun in tough times.
When we watch a movie, my children often choose one of the “Frozen” adventures. I notice that part of what they love about these movies is that Elsa and Anna face hard times and keep going. The coronavirus will lessen its grip on us, but stress will affect our children throughout their lives. Now is a good time to strengthen our own resilience and teach our children to be resilient. We can figure this out!
Jessica Lohff-Phillips, D.O., M.S., is board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics and has joined Kaiser Permanente’s Lane County medical team. For more information on Kaiser Permanente, visit kp.org/lane.