For many parents it is a goal to raise their children to be strong, full of integrity, nurturing, and resilient. We want our children to be able to withstand the tough times and fight through obstacles confidently. But how do we go about doing this in a modern world that is filled with opportunities and challenges, some of which are even too great for us? Authors Robert Brooks, Ph.D. and Sam Goldstein, Ph.D. help to give insight to parents in their book Raising Resilient Children. Before you roll your eyes and think Great, another bunch of “experts” giving me another round of advice, consider their premises for how to raise children who develop resilient mindsets. Their ideas are sound enough to give me pause, and reasonable enough to incorporate into real-world positive parenting.
Nurturing Islands of Competence
According to Brooks and Goldstein, “islands of competence” help to build confidence, successes, and resilient mindsets in our children. I usually don’t get too excited about catch phrases when it comes to parenting advice, but something about the visual this phrase islands of competence brings to mind resonates with me. If we imagine a vast body of water (the opportunities and challenges we all face in life), it seems much more daunting without any of these islands of competence on which we can rely for support. These islands do not emerge because someone else put them there, but because we build them for ourselves.
For our children, islands of competence come in many forms. In a very simple analogy, consider a toddler who is desperately trying to master the ladder and slide at the park (this is the vast body of water – the opportunity with challenges). Each time the toddler can make it up just a few stairs independently, she is building her own islands of competence. She might fall occasionally, but as she experiences more independent successes, the overall challenge isn’t as daunting and her confidence builds. She is becoming resilient to the falls and accepting of the challenges.
5 Principles for Nurturing Islands of Competence
Raising resilient children is not easy if our first instincts are to rescue and protect them, or perhaps direct their every move. Brooks and Goldstein outline 5 principles that they say will help our children develop skills that are essential for foundations of success and resilient mindsets.
- Openly Enjoy and Celebrate Your Children’s Accomplishment
- Emphasize Your Children’s Input in Creating Success
- Identify and Reinforce Your Child’s Islands of Competence by Engaging in Environmental Engineering
- Give Strengths Time to Develop
- Accept the Unique Strengths and Success of Each Child
Celebrating Accomplishments
If you read my post yesterday or have ever heard of Alfie Kohn, you know that he must be cringing at this thought. Kohn would argue that celebrating successes means that we demonstrate that we love our children more when they do well. Brooks and Goldstein, however, argue that “children will feel more successful when their achievements are acknowledged and appreciated by significant people in their lives.” The small steps our children take, whether when riding a two-wheeler for the first time or swinging the bat in Little League, are opportunities for parents to reinforce the accomplishments of their children, and recognize the small islands of competence that are emerging.
This is probably one of the more difficult principles to know how to incorporate. There seems to be a fine line between acknowledging our children’s successes and praising them to the point where the successes are measured by others (us), and not inwardly by our children.
Emphasizing Input
This is probably one of my favorite principles outlined by the authors, and one that I have seen to be successful with my own children. It is the hands-on approach we take as homeschoolers, where our children supply their unique ideas and we don’t do the tasks for them. If my 10 year old son wants to cook dinner (my chef in the making), it is so intrinsically better for him to do it his way, than to have me hovering and showing him how to do it the way I would. Brooks and Goldstein write that “…children with a resilient mindset assume realistic credit for their successes.”
Engaging in Environmental Engineering
No – you don’t need a formal degree for this. This is the wonderful idea that recognizes that children have different talents, abilities, and inclinations, and encourages parents to support them in their endeavors. Brooks and Goldstein give a great example of traditional education plans that most often address the weaknesses of students – the subject in which they need to improve – and the goals are about improving the weaknesses, but rarely about supporting the strengths. Children who are constantly reminded of their weaknesses are at risk for “swimming in a self-perceived ocean of inadequacy” according to the authors. We need to work with our children to support their strengths and allow them opportunities to pursue these, which in turn often improves their weaknesses naturally.
Give it Time
Every child has an internal timetable and we need to honor the difference they have, as they mature cognitively, emotionally, and physically. All of these developmental phases contribute to just when our kids are ready for various activities or challenges, and some of them just can’t be altered, no matter what we do.
Accept Uniqueness
Brooks and Goldstein suggest an activity for parents. Make one list of the islands of competence you see in your child. Make another list of those that you wish your child exhibited. There will likely be differences. However, we need to be extremely careful that we don’t somehow impress on our children that those differences equate to disappointments we feel in them. This is where Kohn and these authors would agree – if we fail to accept the unique strengths and successes of our children, we risk teaching them that we love them conditionally.
Fight the Good Fight
There is such a thing as a good fight – the kind where perserverence and resiliency pay off and challenges are overcome. It is not easy to let our children try and fail or to see them frightened and unsure, but allowing them to move through these phases gives them the tools they need to develop confidence (their islands of competency). Let them fight the good fight – it is the only way they will know what victory feels like.
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