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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2020)
Wednesday, March 18, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 23 Commentary... Five strategies for parenting for resilience By Mitchell L. Luftig, Ph.D Correspondent Parents who want their children to grow up to be strong independent adults must learn to parent for resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from stressful events and hard- ship4a kind of emotional toughness that enables a child to handle their sad- ness and emotional pain in a healthy way so that a chal- lenging situation does not overwhelm them. A child who practices the founda- tional skills for resilience improves the odds that as an adult they will be able to stand up to whatever chal- lenges they face. Resilience is something a child must develop over time; it cannot be awarded like a gold star. The prov- ing ground for resilience is the neighborhood, school- yard, classroom, and home where a child must learn to cope with taunting, being ignored, being picked on, being excluded, and being bullied. As children attempt to navigate this proving ground, they will often feel sad, upset, hurt, mad or dis- appointed. Unable to toler- ate their children9s pain- ful emotions, parents may be tempted to swoop in to end their children9s ordeal. However, children who learn to depend upon adults to fight their battles for them may never acquire the self-confidence and skills they need to stand up for themselves. Parents can learn to tol- erate their children9s emo- tional pain by practicing new strategies to support their children and help them grow into resilient adults. Here are five strategies offered by Ruth Wyatt, MA, LCSW at Good Therapy (www.good- therapy.org): NuggetNews.com is your online source for Breaking News " Empathy: Let your child know that you understand their feelings, even when their own behavior caused hurt to another; let them see that you can accept and handle their feelings, that you are not overwhelmed by them, no matter what they are. As Mr. Rogers put it, <Anything that9s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feel- ings, they become less over- whelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.= " Meaning Making: Ask questions about a difficult event (rather than offering advice or an opinion); this will help your child make sense of what happened, which in turn will enable them to feel less frightened, upset, or overwhelmed by the situation. " Problem Solving: Brainstorm possible solu- tions to a problem or con- flict. Role-play the most promising solutions so that your child can decide which one is most viable. Alternatively, speculate with your child about how they would feel if they were to employ each strategy. " Tolerating Uncertainty: Help your child learn to manage situations outside of their control (e.g., serious ill- ness of a parent) by offering hope and reassurance. " Modeling Resilience: Ensure that personal inse- curities don9t interfere with your own ability to model resilience by examining habitual responses to failure, loss, disappointment, and uncertainty. Courageous par- ents turn toward the source of their distress, rather than away, and by desensitizing themselves to their emo- tional pain they learn to respond adaptively to stress and hardship. Parents who wish to increase resilience should model their behavior after those who already demon- strate considerable resil- ience in their lives. Resilient individuals cope with failure by viewing misfortune as an invitation to act compas- sionately towards those who are dealing with similar dif- ficulties, by viewing failure as an opportunity to dem- onstrate courage in the face of adversity, and by main- taining a realistic view of their setbacks (no building mountains out of molehills). Resilient individuals manage loss by accept- ing change as part of life (e.g., children grow up and leave home, parents age and die). Resilient people rebound from disappoint- ment by drawing strength and motivation from memo- ries of past successes and by remaining optimistic that over time their actions will lead to success. Rather than clinging to a memory of the way things used to be, resilient indi- viduals address uncertainty by acknowledging a change of circumstance (e.g., an elderly person may no lon- ger be able to drive safely). Resilient people practice regular self-care. Resilient individuals surround them- selves with a network of supportive individuals; when they find themselves strug- gling they seek help and understanding. Parents can play an active role in helping their children practice resilience. However, children only learn to bounce back from adversity through direct experience, requiring parents to learn to tolerate their children9s upset feel- ings and restrain themselves from stepping in to manage their children9s problems for them. Parents best support the growth of their children9s resilience through acts of empathy, meaning-making, problem-solving, tolerating uncertainty and modeling resilience. Mitchell L. Luftig, Ph.D. is a semi-retired clinical psy- chologist living in Sisters, Oregon. He is the author of the Kindle book <Six Keys to Mastering Chronic Low- Grade Depression.= You can visit his website at: www. masterchronicdepression. com. 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