What Truly Makes Children Resilient
Spoiler alert: It’s not toughening up or “pushing to potential”
What is resilience?
The definition of resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.
When you think about having the capacity to tackle challenges skillfully, what conditions allow you to remain (relatively) calm and clear-headed, rather than losing your cool?
I can tell you, anecdotally (with extensive evidence to explain why), someone trying to push me beyond my present capacity will only make things worse for all of us.
A short?story
I’m in my early twenties, my (now) husband and I are on a day-long white-water rafting trip with some friends.
Along the way we stop for lunch and some cliff-diving. I figure I’d just battled white water rapids all morning, jumping off a cliff should be no problem.
And then I reach the top.
A normal amount of fear or anxiety when standing at the top of a cliff, looking down at water with a fast current is arguably rather healthy. My natural self-preservation instincts kick in and I hesitate.
I know it is safe, many people have already jumped, and I’m a good swimmer. I want to do it, I’m quite certain I will enjoy it once I do, but now I’m scared.
The group cheers me on and begins counting down from five. 5… 4… 3… 2.. 1.. and I go for it, I jump! I love it and quickly line up to go again.
This is an example of pushing someone within reasonable limits, when they are feeling anxious, but safe enough to take a (in this case, very literal) “leap of faith”, as they say.
A short story with a very different ending
My son is six years old, in grade one. He’s been asked to do a relatively lengthy writing exercise. By this time, he’s been diagnosed with ADHD and is suspected to also have dysgraphia (which impacts the skillset necessary for writing).
When he is resistant to completing the assignment, the teacher decides this is a good time to “push to potential”, encouraging him to give it a try, while not providing any further support or accommodations to help him be successful.
When he continues to refuse, she becomes more rigid, insisting that he do what is being demanded of him. At this point, he rips up his paper and hides under his desk.
When I’m contacted about this, I’m told by the teacher they “didn’t understand” where this came from, there were apparently no discernible antecedents to my son’s behaviour.
How can we expect children to learn flexibility if we are so rigid that we cannot show empathy and compassion to a six year old who is clearly struggling? If we are so rigid that we cannot, perhaps, adapt the assignment to be more in line with a child’s current capacity?
For example, they could have scribed my son’s main point, and then asked him to write a sentence or two himself to expand.
As I reminded them, they could have broken the assignment down into more manageable parts, so he felt less overwhelmed by the volume of writing he was being asked to do all at once.
They could have done a lot of things.
What actually helps children develop resilience
To build resilience, people need an environment in which they feel authentically connected to others, and fully accepted for who they are.
“Children’s emotional well-being and resilience are fostered through their healthy relationships with caring adults.” — Alex Shevrin Venet
In the book Square Pegs, Natasha Devon outlines three things people need in their lives in order to foster resilience:
Numerous experts agree people must feel adequately supported before they will feel safe enough to take risks. Notice there’s nothing here about grit, sucking it up, or developing a thicker skin.
I’m not saying those things can’t or shouldn’t happen.
I am saying trying to bypass the first three requirements and fast forward to the part where we encourage children to stretch their limits is ineffective and often backfires, as taking shortcuts often does.
We cannot expect children to learn how to be flexible if we don’t role-model flexibility. We cannot expect children to take a leap of faith without first having trusting relationships to cushion them should they fall.
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What does not?help
Behaviourism-based approaches which focus on punishments and rewards are not conducive to strong, trusting relationships, nor to creating a strong sense of belonging.
Instead, these approaches use emotional manipulation to create anxiety in children. Children’s behaviour is controlled through the fear of whether they’ll perform to expectations — whether they’ll receive the proverbial carrot being dangled, or the stick being threatened.
“Rewards and punishments flourish in asymmetrical relationships, where one person has most of the power. Rewards and punishments exacerbate that imbalance, and are not conducive to developing and maintaining positive relationships” — Alfie Kohn
It’s about?balance
(and compassion)
Pushing someone when they’re already dysregulated (scared, angry, anxious, upset, hurt, etc.) can harm your relationship with them and can actually make them less resilient.
This is especially true for children. If children experience the adults in their lives as unable or unwilling to listen when they express they really can’t, or that they truly need help, their sense of safety and connection will be tenuous at best.
Not knowing whether the important people in your life will understand and support you can lead to an increase in anxiety, stress, and a significant reduction of confidence.
Children know when someone is pushing because they’re impatient, frustrated, or because they find the child’s resistance inconvenient.
It’s only when we know someone really has our back, cares about us, and is rooting for us to succeed that we feel confident enough to step out of our comfort zone.
There are no shortcuts when it comes to fostering healthy, secure relationships.
? Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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References
Bowlby, John. (1980) Attachment and Loss: Volume 1. Attachment. Basic Books.
Devon, Natasha. (2023). The square pegs in your sandwich layer. In Fran Morgan, Ellie Costello, Ian Gilbert (Eds.). Square Pegs: Inclusivity, compassion and fitting in. A guide for schools. Independent Thinking Press.
Hoffman, K., Cooper, G., Powell, B., Benton, C. M. (2017). Raising a secure child. Guilford Publications.
Kohn, A. (2018). Punished by Rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Publishing.
Luvmour, J., & Luvmour, B. (2019). Relationship Based Education: Relationships and partnerships in educational environments.
Mavir, Heidi. (2022). Your Child Is Not Broken: Parenting your neurodivergent child without losing your marbles. Authors & Co.
Venet, A. S. (2021). Equity-Centred, Trauma-Informed Education. W. W. Norton & Co.