Picture this: life is like a rollercoaster ride, full of ups and downs, twists and turns. And as parents, we want to equip our little ones with the skills to navigate those ups and downs like champions.
Last week, the Singapore Parenting Festival hosted a highly informative and engaging webinar entitled, Raise resilient children with 5Cs: Confidence, Connection, Character, Coping and Control, featuring two child experts in the country.
Featuring Cheryl Ann Chan, Senior Programme Manager at PlayFACTO School and Alvina Chin, Family Life Educator at Mums for Life, this session explored practical strategies and tips for parents to help their children develop these essential attributes, paving the way for a brighter and more successful future. The event was a great success, and parents left the webinar feeling empowered and equipped with practical skills to raise resilient and successful children.
How to Raise Resilient Children
With the ever-changing and challenging world that children are growing up in today, it is crucial to equip them with the necessary tools to navigate and thrive in their environment. That’s where resilience comes in.
By definition, resilience is the ability to adapt and flourish in spite of headwinds and difficulties. But the question all of us ask ourselves is, when should we start teaching our children resilience?
When to Start Teaching Your Child Resilience
According to Cheryl Ann Chan, Senior Programme Manager at PlayFACTO School, from the moment that your child starts experiencing the world on their own, and making independent decisions, you should already start teaching them about resilience. Why? Because resilience comes from a child’s own decision point.
So the next question is HOW. As a parent myself, I know how challenging it can be to raise a child, let alone a resilient one. But the child experts prove that it can be done, using a framework called the 5 Cs, which were discussed in the said seminar.
But before we dive into the topic of resilience, let us first go into a subject that goes hand in hand with resilience. Courage.
How Parents Get in the Way of Building Courage
We want to raise our kids to be courageous, be brave. But what we don’t realise as parents is that we may be the ones who are hindering our children from developing courage. Here are 3 ways that we are getting in the way:
1. We overprotect
It’s very natural for parents to be protective. And we have very good reasons to do that. But sometimes we might be actually hindering a very necessary process in our kid’s life. So, how to we overprotect our child? It’s when we rush in to solve their problems. We want to protect them from the discomfort of frustration or disappointment and failure, that we’re so quick to give solutions without letting them marinate on the situation first.
2. We overcontrol
And in our efforts to shield our children from failure, we might also overcontrol and micromanage situations. How does this come to play?
We might be very, very tempted to promote the kind of play that has a greater chance of success. We play games with them and we always let them win. Does that sound familiar? So, how does this hinder the development of courage?
“When we keep doing this right and micromanage situations, we limit the opportunities that our children need to develop perseverance and resilience as they grow because they will face even more challenges,” said Alvina Chin, a Family Life Educator from MUMS for Life.
“We need to give them that space to develop those skills. These are very, very important,” she added.
3. We undersupport
Raising courageous children usually involves dealing with fear and failure. And if parents struggle with fear and failure, it makes it very, very difficult for us to provide the support and encouragement that our children need to develop healthy ways of coping with this feeling.
So, what is the first step we must take to build courageous children? We must work on ourselves first.
Courageous Parents, Courageous Children
Do you believe that you have courage within you? You should. Case in point – you decided to become a parent.
“I think purely by being a parent, it’s one of the bravest things you can do,” said Alvina.
“Because every day, this extension of you is just running, running around and you don’t know if they’re climbing something, you don’t know the choice that they’re making. So I think parents are just not aware of this daily courage that they are actually expressing in so many different ways.”
Now that we have learned to internalise our inner courage, we can now work on the steps of raising courageous children. The only thing you need to remember is to be BRAVE.
B – Believe that your child is capable.
R- Remember to model your courage
A – Affirm your child’s personal courage
V – Validate your child’s emotion
E – Empower your child to solve problems.
Image Source: iStock
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Believe that your child is capable.
You’ve seen how your child can navigate that mobile screen and just swipe and do amazing things and search things on their own. There’s no doubt about it. They are truly capable.
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Remember to model your courage and talk about it.
Don’t hesitate to share your stories of personal courage with your child. Talk to them about how you handle failure. Talk about how you overcame fear. Share the moments that you chose courage over fear.
“The moment we express vulnerability to our children, our children actually find a role model in us. And this actually allows us to nurture a very emotionally supportive environment at home. So don’t be afraid to talk about your failures,” said Alvina.
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Affirm your child’s personal courage.
Different children are afraid of different things. Some kids can be fearless when climbing slides while show shiver at the thought of going up such a height. As parents, we can find out what situation is particularly scary for our child. Why? So that we can recognise and point it out to our kids when they show personal courage.
“Young children don’t necessarily understand the concept of courage. So that’s why as parents, we need to understand or recognise what courage looks like for each child. And we point it out every time we see it,” said Alvina.
So the next time we see them overcome something that they are afraid of, we can affirm their courage and say, “That’s brave of you to do that because I know you were afraid of that the last time.”
“The more we affirm this courage, their personal courage, the more encouraged they would be to access it each time,” added the child expert.
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Validate your child’s emotions.
We might think that the slide or public speaking is not such a big deal, but for our child, it could have an enormous effect.
Validating their emotion is simply acknowledging this scary emotion in our child, how intense it is, and the effect or the impact it has on our child.
You might not agree with it, or think it’s not something to be afraid of, but you’re validating it for them because that’s their experience. And as parents, what we can do is we can follow through by helping them to process their emotions in a very healthy way.
Research has shown that when we put feelings into words, it actually helps to call back our negative responses to fear. Saying it removes the stigma and its power over us.
“So let’s learn to be comfortable talking about these really strong, negative feelings because it actually helps our children to have a healthy understanding of emotions as a teacher, emotions as a guide, rather than something to be afraid of or something that has control over them,” shared Alvina.
Let’s also take the cue from our children. We cannot force them to face something they are not ready for. Instead, we should just support them and encourage them.
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Empower your child to solve problems.
If we want our children to learn how to overcome their fear and handle difficult situations, we need to trust that they can do it. So instead of stepping in at every challenge they face, just pause, and take a moment. Don’t be so quick to rush in to fix things.
Alvina related an incident that happened when her child was being bullied in school. Her child relayed what was happening to her, and instead of going full Tiger mum mode, she asked her child, “So what are you going to do about it?”
“So he started telling me all these things that he was planning to do, and I thought, pretty solid plan, you know, and I say, ‘Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good plan, go for it.’
But I also remember to tell him, ‘But at any point, if you find that your plan is not working the way you want it to and you need me to step in, just let me know. I am ready.’” she shared.
We want to nurture a sense of control and a sense of autonomy in our children. This is so crucial for their mental well-being because a lot of anxiety problems really stem from a sense of loss of control.
And the more children experience control in various aspects of their life, the more confident they will have in their own capabilities, to face challenges and overcome some of these challenges.
As parents, we need to provide a safe and very supportive environment at home for children to grow, where fears can be faced, and failure isn’t fatal.
“To this, I want to say let’s be courageous parents, to raise courageous children so that they will grow to be resilient adults,” finished Alvina.
Resilience Framework: the 5Cs
“Research has shown repeatedly that resilience is a skill that we can learn. And it’s a tool we can use to overcome challenges,” said Cheryl Ann.
In the webinar, she walked us through five important points that we need to remember in raising a resilient child.
It starts with what was already mentioned – a belief in your child’s abilities. Then if we already know that they are capable and they can surpass these struggles, we give them these opportunities to experience success.
We support their confidence by encouraging them and giving positive feedback.
Earlier, Alvina related to us what she told her child when he was faced with a difficulty. She did not swoop in to solve his problem. Instead, she said,
“At any point your plan is not working the way you want it to and you need me to step in, just let me know. I am ready.”
Helping our children build deep and meaningful connections is key to helping them build resilience. You could strengthen your connection with your children by having regular and constant check-ins with them every day.
“Where children are concerned, quality beats quantity. 10 minutes of focused, undistracted attention every day can make a huge difference. This could mean involving them in interest groups, the communities outside of the classrooms and immediate families.
Providing ample opportunities for them to form close relationships with the wider community will help our children cultivate resilience and sensitivity,” shared Cheryl Ann.
It’s all about teaching our children right from wrong. Your child’s character shapes their identity. It determines their thoughts, their words and deeds. Strong traits like perseverance, empathy, and integrity can be the tools to help your children navigate life’s challenges with grace and resilience.
How do you do this, instil a solid set of morals and values in your children, you ask. The shortest and simplest answer would be to model this to them.
“A more comprehensive answer would be to turn errors that they make into learning opportunities through reflection.
It is very important to note though, that the presence of fear of punishment will trigger the release of stress hormones that will impede learning new behaviour,” reminded Cheryl Ann.
And how do we make sure that our children are not traumatised by these challenging situations?
Do you have a child who frequently goes into emotional meltdowns? Many children go into meltdowns when they are unable to identify and express what they feel inside. This leads their emotions to just bubble and then erupt like a volcano. That’s why meltdowns occur.
Teaching your child coping skills like deep breathing or accessing a feelings wheel can help them identify and express their emotions freely, and have a healthy response to it.
This is developed when your child understands the impact of his or her own decisions. Giving them a sense of control can help them feel more empowered and more resilient.
So while our instincts to protect our children are very strong, giving them opportunities to make choices and take ownership over their own lives will lead to a more resilient child.
This might include a somewhat painful and difficult process of having to watch them work through or even suffer some consequences of their own choices.
These things are easier said than done, but remember that raising a resilient child is not a journey, but it’s a destination and it takes a process.
Raising resilient children is undoubtedly a formidable task, demanding patience, dedication, and unwavering support. But seeing your child bravely face the challenges ahead of them and rising from failure is definitely worth all our efforts.
So let’s stay courageous so we may also raise brave and resilient children. Rooting for you, mums and dads!
Image Source: iStock
