Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings

By Kenneth R Ginsburg MD, MS Ed, FAAP and Martha M. Jablow

Help prepare the children and teens in your life to face life's challenges with grace and grit. In this award-winning guide author and pediatrician Dr. Ken Ginsburg shares his 7 crucial Cs: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. You'll discover how to incorporate these concepts into your parenting style and communication strategies, thereby strengthening your connection. And that connection will position you to guide your child to bounce back from life's challenges and forge a meaningful and successful life. You'll also learn detailed coping strategies to help children and teenagers deal with the stresses of academic pressure, media messages, peer pressure, and family tension. These approaches will prepare children to thrive and make it less likely that they will turn to risky quick fixes and haphazard solutions. Resilience is a critical life skill. And it can be taught! Learn how with Building Resilience in Children and Teens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: American Academy of Pediatrics
• Release date: May 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781610023870

Book preview

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Introduction

We limit our goals, and young people’s potential, when we see children only in the moment. We rarely view a cute 5-year-old or a texting preteen as the 35-, 40-, and 50-year-olds they will become. If we are to prepare children to become the healthy, productive, contributing adults that will repair our world and lead us into the future, we must set our vision for the long term. For them to thrive over their lifetime, we need to consider their happiness and achievement today, as well as the skills they’ll need to navigate an increasingly complex world tomorrow. We want them to be able to overcome adversity and view challenges as opportunities for growth and innovation. We need them to be resilient.

How This Book Stands Out

Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings translates the best of what is known about positive youth development and resilience into strategies parents can apply in their homes. Because children thrive best when they have many layers of support, we have created a body of work that will also be useful to other caring adults critical to building a child’s resilience. When I speak to parents and young people throughout the nation, I am always enriched by their feedback. I learn about the additional information they desire and gain from their pearls of wisdom. It is important that this work evolves to meet their needs and that it shares their wisdom and experience. In addition, research continues to advance our understanding of how best to prepare children to thrive. Parents and communities deserve to know the latest in thinking, and this fourth edition keeps them abreast of some of the latest strategies. Furthermore, much of Building Resilience content has always focused on prevention—preparing your child to succeed, and to make wise decisions, even when times are tough. In response to an expressed need from so many parents, this fourth edition offers a deeper dive into what to do during those tough times. It prepares us to be the kind of adults who can fully support young people during those times, restore our relationships if they’ve been challenged, and bring our children back to be their best selves.

Our multimedia approach in partnership with HealthyChildren.org and parentandteen.com does so much more than update information; it expands the reach of how that information can be delivered. Videos can reinforce and solidify the strategies offered in the book. This allows book clubs in schools and parenting organizations to begin their debriefs or meetings with videos to initiate or serve as focal points of discussion. Further, this vitally important message of building youth resilience can now reach people whose learning style is better suited for watching or listening than reading. It also allows ideas to be offered in snackable portions to spouses and teens who may not be able to invest the time and energy in reading a work as comprehensive as Building Resilience.

Finally, Building Resilience can serve as a companion to the comprehensive body of work prepared for professionals, Reaching Teens: Strength-Based, Trauma-Sensitive, Resilience-Building Communication Strategies Rooted in Positive Youth Development, 2nd Edition. This multimedia work helps professionals apply the best of what is known from the positive youth development, resilience, and trauma-informed movements. It has 95 chapters and more than 400 videos and offers continuing education credits. It offers tailored experiences for educators, foster care parents and professionals, health care professionals, and youth-serving professionals who work in juvenile justice or substance use settings. Schools, health practices, and youth programs throughout the nation are using it. Building Resilience allows parents and other caring adults to easily get on the same page as professionals to create the kind of partnerships that best serve youth.

If we all work together as parents, schools, communities, and policy makers to nurture our children today, they will become the strong, compassionate, creative adults we need tomorrow.

Using This Book

I hope you think about the ideas on these pages, try them on for size, and see how they fit your individual children, depending on each one’s character, temperament, likes and dislikes, and strengths and opportunities for growth. I hope you return to this book as your children grow because examples apply to different stages of development.

You’ll also probably need to go back from time to time to review skills and adapt guidelines as your child backslides or moves to a new developmental milestone. Kids need ongoing support—not nagging, lecturing, or criticism, but gentle reinforcement and practice. Like developing a good jump shot or mastering a musical instrument, skill-building takes time, practice, and patience.

You’ll also discover (although you probably already know it) that children mature in fits and starts. Whenever an important, new situation is about to occur, such as entering a new school, moving to a different community, or starting summer camp, your child will probably regress a bit. You may notice this pattern with some children in even less momentous circumstances, such as going to a sleepover for the first time. They may behave as they did last year or lash out at you or your spouse. This is normal!

Think about how you’d leap across a chasm. You wouldn’t stand on the edge and just jump across. You’d take several steps backward to get a running start before you leap, and then cover your eyes as you soar across. Visualize every major developmental stage or challenge as a chasm that children worry about crossing. Don’t be surprised when they take 2 or 3 steps backward before their next attempt to move forward. And don’t be shocked if they sometimes leap with blinders on.

Please don’t feel defeated if you do your best to help your children across that chasm and your efforts seem to fall short. Children are listening, even when they roll their eyes or ask, Are you done yet? Know that you can make a difference even when it feels like they’ve slipped backward.

Be flexible as you apply the guidelines offered here. The standard line I was taught over the years was, Consistency is the most important ingredient in parenting. If that means consistency of love, I agree. But I wasn’t completely consistent raising my own children. Each of my daughters had her individual temperament. On any given day, they may have lived the same experience, but each required a different response from me.

I don’t mean we have to just go with the flow. We certainly need to have clear, unwavering values, and our love for our kids has to be the most consistent, stable, and obviously expressed force in our homes. Children benefit from knowing that there are reliable routines in their lives. But life is always changing. To be resilient, we must adapt as circumstances require, for our own sake as well as to model this valuable quality for our children.

We want to make crossing that chasm a bit easier when we can. We know our children need to get across on their own, but we’d like to help them build a bridge. This book is about giving kids the tools they need to construct that bridge while maintaining the kind of relationships that will make them more likely to welcome our presence alongside them.

Why Me?

My life’s work is about guiding youth toward a socially, emotionally, and physically healthy life. I am a pediatrician who has degrees in child and human development and who has specialized in adolescent medicine since 1990 at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Early on, most of my guidance tended toward telling kids what not to do. I learned pretty quickly that this problem-focused approach sometimes instilled shame and rarely worked. On the other hand, when youth are noticed for their strengths and expected to rise to their potential, they become self-motivated to overcome their challenges. While my service could spark their motivation, it was really their parents’ support that made the long-lasting difference. In short, there is nothing I can do that carries even a fraction of meaning compared with what parents do at home and what communities do to support children and youth. Outside of medicine, my purest joys have included teaching in nursery school, where I learned more than I ever taught. Much of what I believe about resilience was absorbed on a Lakota Native American reservation in South Dakota. There, I learned about the strength of community to support individuals.

I am a qualitative researcher—that is, I learn about children and teens from kids themselves. I developed a method with one of my mentors, Gail B. Slap, MD, that helps adults learn from the wisdom of youth. This research allows young people to teach us how they determine whether adults are trustworthy and what they think makes a difference in whether they will thrive. The majority of my knowledge has been acquired from working directly with young patients and their parents. I have a medical practice that is widely varied—I treat suburban and urban youth, children of college professors and children in poverty, some who have thrived despite social inequities and some who have not.

From families, children, and youth experiencing homelessness, I have learned great lessons about individual strength and the extremes from which people can recover. As the health services director of Covenant House Pennsylvania, I work with youth who have survived lives that would have destroyed me. I am showered with their wisdom about what it takes to move beyond pain and what ingredients could have been in place that would have enabled them to thrive. From them, I know that children and teens have the capability to overcome almost anything. Because many have absorbed a great deal of condemnation and low expectation, some begin to see themselves as problems. I help them identify and build on their strengths. While I may serve as a guide, they do the heavy lifting. They possess a different kind of credential, one that is earned through survival. I am consistently amazed by how many of them want to devote their lives to guiding children to overcome difficulty. With the right kind of investment in them, we will find many of the healers of tomorrow. From my colleagues who work at Covenant House, I have learned that a loving, strength-building environment that offers structure permits young people to flourish and move beyond a troubled past.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to translate what is known from research and best practices into applied efforts to optimize resilience in youth and their families. As Founding Director of The Center for Parent & Teen Communication, I am devoted to helping families strengthen and deepen their connections. As a lead content expert for The Hive at Spring Point, an inspirational group of strengths-based youth development organizations in Philadelphia, I learn from colleagues how to amplify voice, choice, and opportunity for all young people. I was named the National External Resilience Expert in 2014 for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to support resilience strategies in their programs. The mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America is To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. It has also been an honor to work on building resilience among the children, adolescents, and families of those who serve our nation in the military. I have travelled extensively over the last decade to support military communities but have always left genuinely inspired by the strengths I witness in these families. In particular, it has been a pleasure to work with the Military Child Education Coalition in helping to design resilience-based strategies to support the emotional health and well-being of military-affiliated children. Especially because so much of what I know to be true about resilience I learned from the Lakota people, I am humbled to have worked with the National Congress of American Indians to further develop resilience-building strategies for our indigenous youth.

Read This Book With 2 Lenses

Resilience is a wonderfully positive concept, but it should never be confused with invulnerability. Just as children can reach their limits of resilience, so too can the adults who love and care for them. As you read this, for your own sake and for that of the young people in your lives, please read this with an eye to building your own resilience as well.

PART 1

Be the Kind of Parent With Long-standing Influence

CHAPTER 1

The Power of Loving Relationships

Our love is the most protective, enduring force we offer our children.

Why do we love? Because it makes our children know that they are worthy of being loved. The genuine sense that they are worth being cared for offers the bedrock of self-regard that will affect their behaviors and emotional well-being during childhood and adolescence, as well as the security from which they will launch into adulthood. It is the basis from which they will enter meaningful friendships and romantic relationships far into the future.

If you are reading this as a parent, these words likely ring true as the most essential element of parenting. The love a parent has for a child can’t be adequately described when we are limited to words, as it is ingrained on too deep of a level.

If you are reading this as a professional, however, the power of a loving relationship applies as well. Just as a parent loves a child, but may not like her behavior, you can be loving even as you hold young people accountable to be their best selves. Liking is a subjective thing. Approving is something earned with appropriate behaviors. Loving is an active process we can always achieve. It is about young people knowing that we genuinely care about them, that we choose to be involved because we care. Loving is taking that extra step to see young people beyond the surface behaviors they might display. Throughout this book, you’ll be reading content directed largely to parents. Professionals can adapt the best principles of loving parenting to create trusting, transformative relationships with the young people they serve. We know this will make a difference. Research has proven, for example, that students learn better when they know their teachers genuinely care about them.

Demonstrating Love

There are so many ways we demonstrate love for our children. All of them are meaningful and protective. You likely show love using several of these ways.

You tell them. This is the simplest way to express your love. Remember that love counts most when our children know they are loved. You know what you feel because it drives your actions. Don’t assume that a child knows how deeply you feel. (Note to professionals: You will express loving kindness but should avoid the word love, because it can have multiple meanings. Instead let young people know how much you enjoy being with them and how deeply you care about them.)

You see the best in them. The world is full of people who only measure our values based on how we behave or what we produce. This can be particularly harmful for adolescents whose behaviors can sometimes be challenging. It can also harm teens by making them anxious, thinking that their worthiness is related primarily to the scores they earn or the grades they achieve. They begin to see themselves as products. It is the knowledge of who our children are, and have always been, that can counteract these potentially destructive forces. In fact, our knowledge of the essential good our children, tweens, and teens possess is one of the surest ways of having them rise to their best selves. Love is seeing someone as they deserve to be seen, as they really are, not through the lens of the behaviors they display, or what they produce.

You protect them. When we monitor our children’s’ behavior, and set clear boundaries around morality and safety beyond which they cannot stray, we make them safer. There are few things we can do to make our love more meaningful than keeping our kids safe.

You discipline them. When we help our children learn self-control, we prepare them to better engage in all future relationships. When we discipline from a loving stance, the true meaning of the word discipline—which is to teach—is elevated.

You prepare them. We know that the world is a complicated place, full of pushes and pulls, risks and opportunities. Preparation is protection. When we prepare our children to navigate the world safely and wisely, we show them, lovingly, how much we care about them becoming their best selves. Reflect for a moment: you are reading this book, Building Resilience, precisely so you can prepare your child to navigate through unforeseen circumstances. That’s love.

You are there for them. Relationships come and go. Especially during adolescence, friendships shift. School years pass. Sports seasons end. Sometimes we leave communities. The world can feel like an unsafe, unpredictable place. Our unwavering and reliable presence is a tangible expression of our love.

You enjoy spending time with them. The world can run a mile a minute. Sometimes that makes us feel as though we need to make every moment count. We begin to think high-yield parenting is focusing on grades, performance, and behaviors. That can make kids feel as though we’re always evaluating them. If you want to have the most influence over your child or adolescent, make time together mutually cherished. Enjoy each other.

You do things for them. We earn a living to provide for the needs of our children as best as we can. We help them with their homework. We sometimes take them where they need (and want) to go. We do those things both out of responsibility and as a tangible expression of our love.

You get out of their way. Sometimes we let them try things out on their own, even fail, because we love them. We celebrate their development; we know sometimes they grow strongest when they figure things out independently.

Loving Actions Can Backfire, so Talk It Through

Although children, tweens, and teens benefit from all expressions of love we discussed, and likely appreciate them, it is also possible some of those things we do out of love will be misinterpreted—even backfire. Protection can oftentimes be wrongly interpreted as control. Preparation can be misunderstood as lacking confidence in our children’s ability to navigate the world on their own. What we do for our children can be taken for granted or underappreciated as being just our job. Giving them room to fail and recover can be misinterpreted as us not caring.

It is for these reasons that we want to always express our love verbally, using whatever words are most comfortable. Remember, it is not what we feel, it is what they know we feel that offers them the greatest protection. It is not what we do, it is their understanding of why we do what we do that will frame our relationships and shape their reactions to our efforts. Keep protecting, preparing, and doing for your children, and sometimes standing aside, but always remember to let them know why you do these things, as seen in the following examples.

I set rules for you because it is my job to protect you. I love you too much to see you being unsafe.

I want you to be ready to get out of a risky situation with your friends. I care too much about you to let you be put in danger because of somebody else’s poor decision.

It is worth working hard because I am able to provide for you as best as I can. I love you so much and giving you a safe place to live and healthy food means the world to me.

I am getting out of your way, so you can learn this lesson on your own. No mistake you make or temporary failure will ever change how much I care about you. In fact, because I love you, I want you to learn that the failures we all experience give us the opportunity to recover and do better next time.

Families Are Complicated, and the World Is Unpredictable

When we are asked how we experience parenting, many of us jump in with the practiced response, I love every minute of it; best job I ever had. We feel good when we say it, but the truth is parenting can be really tough. Families are complicated places and sometimes precisely because children feel most comfortable within our homes, they also can express their frustrations with life right in our living rooms, and their anger right to our faces. Add to that, the fact that the world is unpredictable. Events outside of our homes can seep through our walls and, as our stress rises, it can affect how our families function.

So, let’s be real. You can be crazy in love with your child and still acknowledge that sometimes you want to tear your hair out. Sometimes you’d like nothing more than alone time. That is all expected. It is the fact that we get through those times that adds an even deeper layer of security to our children. They learn that they can have conflict and recover. They learn that life has lots of bumps along the way, but ultimately it is their families that they can count on. They learn there is a place where they can temporarily be their worst selves, and they will still be cared about. They learn that love is not only about praise; it is also about active, even firm, guidance.

Unconditional Love With High Expectations

A cornerstone from decades of research and experience about developing young people to be their best selves is that children and adolescents thrive when they have at least one adult (more is better!) who believes in them unconditionally and holds them to high expectations.

Let’s dive in a bit because at first glance the need to have high expectations would seem to be in conflict with the imperative of being unconditional in our love. In fact, however, unconditional love yields its greatest power when paired with high expectations. The key is understanding that high expectations here do not refer to grades, scores, or performances. They are about holding young people accountable to being their best selves. It is about knowing who they really are and always have been. It is about recognizing and elevating their core goodness—their character.

It is this accountability we have for our children that buffers them against undermining forces in their lives. Our belief in them can sustain them through self-doubt. When peer pressure poses a danger, our high expectations can be critically protective. When young people must navigate forces of discrimination and low expectation, our unwavering high expectations can bolster their drive to push forward.

We want our children to look at the reflection in our eyes to measure their real worth. If other people communicate that there is only so much our children can achieve, our knowledge that they can do better is deeply protective. If other people see our children through the lens of their mistakes or unwise behaviors, our knowledge of all their goodness and potential is what can bring them back to being their better selves.

Above all, the real meaning of our love being unconditional is that our presence can be fully relied on. We will stick with them through good and challenging times, through thick and thin. We will have their backs, as described in Chapter 28. The bedrock of young people’s security is the knowledge that they are cared about, no matter what.

CHAPTER 2

Parenting the 35-Year-Old

When we think of raising children and teens, we too often look at the child right in front of us, and mistakenly focus on achievements such as education, grades, awards, test scores, or accomplishments on the playing field. Others focus mainly on our children’s happiness. And, of course most of us want both—and we should. The problem becomes when we focus only on these points. We must thoughtfully consider what is meant by success, otherwise we may push our children, tweens, and teens to fit a narrow definition of success that can get in the way of their thriving in the long term.

We must prepare our children to thrive and succeed far into the future. We need to bear in mind that our goal in raising children is to prepare them to be successful at 35, 40, or 50 years of age. When we stay focused on the future, our vision on how to parent today sharpens. Our understanding of what is a successful childhood and adolescence broadens. Our grasp on which strengths to develop is fortified.

Why Not Focus on Happiness, Grades, or Scores?

Why not be satisfied with their smiles today? Because it’s too easy to make a child happy. Give a 5-year-old a new toy and he beams. Get a 12-year-old a new bike and she is overjoyed. Order a 16-year-old concert tickets and he is thrilled. But as importantly, it is also too easy to make a child unhappy. Setting limits on a video game can bring a 7-year-old to tears. Setting firm boundaries about curfew for a 15-year-old may trigger resentment, especially if your limits differ from those set by friends’ parents. When happiness is your primary goal, it can get in the way of being the kind of parent that can best shape your child.

What’s wrong with judging success largely by grades? There are many answers to that question. First, when teens internalize pressure to achieve grades, it can generate anxiety, which will lower their performance. Second, grades measure only one way a person interfaces with the world. Grades might make young people feel incompetent rather than allowing them to celebrate strengths they possess in areas that are ungraded. Overfocusing on grades may backfire by leading young people to think their worth has been determined by what they have achieved by age 18. This undermines their potential to see that life offers continuous opportunities for growth and self-improvement. It also sets up too many young people to feel unsuccessful because school is not their area of strength. There are multiple intelligences, and only some of them are demonstrated academically. They might feel as though they have failed merely because they have not achieved placement in the college or training program of choice. Third, pressure can also make them feel justified to do what it takes to get the grade, and that can undercut the development of some of the very character strengths that predict long-term success.

Don’t get me wrong, every young person should achieve in school to his highest potential and that requires effort on his part and encouragement and support on his parents’ part. But, it is critical that every young person launch into the future feeling as if he can bring something important to the world. No teenager should feel like they have failed because their particular gift to the world was not on display in an academic setting.

Perhaps most poignantly, when we focus on happiness or achievements, we can raise children who think they are performing for us and that can generate unnecessary self-doubt and anxiety within them. They may launch into adulthood worried they are not good enough or always look for an audience to measure them.

Parenting in the Present, Focusing on the Future (With a Note of Caution)

When we envision the 35-, 40-, or 50-year-old we are nurturing, our understanding of a successful childhood and adolescence broadens. As importantly, young people learn that they are preparing for their future, one that is interdependent with ours, rather than performing for us. Our challenge is to recognize the gifts in every child and, more importantly, create the circumstances in which young people will discover their own strengths, so they can ultimately determine those areas in which they can make their greatest contributions.

As we consider what ingredients successful adults need, keep in mind that not every person needs every trait. But those who will be most successful will have many of them. Of course, success also includes being able to earn a living and attain a good education. All of the chapter’s discussion points will significantly enhance your children’s ability to do so (as adults!) while finding meaning and satisfaction in what they do.

We are all uneven. Not everyone has or needs each of the traits we’ll discuss. Your job is to notice and reinforce some of your children’s natural strengths. You’ll also see that other potential strengths need fortification, because they will not come naturally. Still others may not be fully realistic for your child at this stage, or ever. In these cases, demonstrate that you value those behaviors in others, without making your children feel badly that they’re not quite there.

Let’s discuss one more point before we dive into the characteristics we should hope to build in our children. Just as we shouldn’t over focus on grades, scores, or happiness today, we should not be overfocusing on THE FUTURE in a way that makes children fear it, or worry they might not be ready for it, or be good enough to play their part in it. First, younger children can’t envision the future as a real concept. Second…it’s…just…too…much…pressure. In other words, while you will always be bearing the future in mind, don’t start a lot of sentences with, I need you to do this so you will be a successful person in the future. Instead, recognize, reinforce, and build the strengths they need. Occasionally you’ll use words to back up your actions and when you do, use loving language like, I care about this in you because I want you to be the kind of person you are capable of becoming.

A 35-Year-Old Deserves Happiness

Adults need and deserve happiness. But happiness looks differently to a 35-year-old than it does to a 6-year-old. It’s not about having a treat. (Even though we still like cookies.) Happiness in adulthood is about having a sense of meaning and purpose, about knowing you matter. It’s about being driven by passion and pursuing personal fulfillment. It’s about finding a livelihood you enjoy while also having the kind of relationships that keep you grounded.

Happy adults understand work is important, but family is paramount and friendships have great value. They have deep relationships that remind them that their presence makes a difference and support them when they need shoulders to lean on. They know how to take care of themselves so they have the energy to care for others. They know how to be independent but choose to be interdependent. They believe communities strengthen us.

Happy adults celebrate the child within them. They can be unabashedly playful. They can be creative and let themselves color outside the lines. They love lifelong learning and know that opportunities for growth are everywhere. They are open to wonder. This will keep them joyous, at 100 years old and beyond.

We Need 35-Year-Olds With Strong Moral Values

Our future adults must have a grounding in morality. We need the next generation of adults to find the solutions for our social problems, out of concern for the earth and humanity. We need to help them have an inner compass that guides them to make decisions and always take into consideration how their actions affect others. They need to see beyond themselves, or immediate personal gain.

We need 35-, 40-, and 50-year-olds who are generous of spirit and compassionate. They must choose not to avert their eyes when they see human suffering, but instead reach out with compassion and without judgment. We need them to be prepared to join with others to build better communities. We need them to have a firm commitment to move forward by reaching across our differences rather than stoking division. The future must belong to those who understand that solutions are built by well-worn paths between neighbors.

We Need Creative 35-Year-Olds

Successful adults are creative. In this constantly changing world, the best ideas may not even have surfaced. Those who will thrive in this environment maintain the ability to imagine. They are flexible and creative, fully committed to innovation and open to hearing new ideas. They experience failure as a misstep that can be corrected with just a bit of innovative spirit.

We Need 35-Year-Olds With the Capacity to Succeed in the Workplace

Successful adults are hardworking. They know only a concerted effort produces results. They have tenacity. They are willing to delay gratification because they see life as a marathon rather than a sprint. (This phrase is borrowed from Dr Angela Duckworth, whose work will be discussed later in Chapter 34.) They know how to remove obstacles from their path rather than give up. They are driven by a sense of purpose. They have grit.

Successful adults never stop learning in the workplace. They experience constructive criticism as an opportunity for growth rather than a personal attack. They know that intelligence is something built through work and experience, and solidified through feedback. It is not something one possesses or lacks.

We Need 35-Year-Olds With Collaborative Skills

Successful adults have the social and emotional intelligences that contribute to leadership and collaborative skills. They can listen, really listen. They can observe. They can share their own thoughts and experiences without trying to dominate or belittle others.

They can look at a large problem and understand that even what appears insurmountable can be achieved when tasks are thoughtfully and properly divided. Those who effectively collaborate in the workplace harness pooled intelligence, meaning that, together, they can come up with ideas they never could have arrived at as individuals. If the answer is purple, a person who only considers red will never find the solution. But when seated with another person who fully understands blue, together they arrive at the answer. Rather than point out others’ shortcomings, successful collaborators harness each individual’s skill sets as the foundation for a shared optimal outcome. They recognize that people who listen to many others, especially those closest to the problem, are often the best leaders.

Successful adults honor diverse thought. In fact, they know that when they honor the earned wisdom and lived experiences from people who are different than them, they will grow themselves and learn things they could never know if not exposed to people with different backgrounds than their own.

We Need 35-Year-Olds Who Can Surmount Challenges

Successful 35-, 40-, and 50-year-olds are resilient. Rather than dwelling on their shortcomings, they seek growth. Rather than cursing the darkness, they learn how much even the smallest light can illuminate a room. They are not easily defeated; they know how to recover and to use adversity to build their strength. They have a mind-set that can tell the difference between a real tiger and a paper tiger—something that feels ferocious in the moment, but can do them no real harm. They trust they can get through most things, particularly with the support of others. They are not easily defeated. They know how to bounce back and use adversity and the recovery process as a means to build their strength.

In fact, successful adults see failure differently. Rather, then crumbling beneath it, they see it as an opportunity to regroup and try again. In fact, most innovative ideas have risen after multiple failures allowed for the course corrections that would lead to the ultimate success. People with fear of failure pass on opportunities to stretch and, therefore, to make their greatest contributions. Whereas those who learn to see failure as a passing phase can grow from each misstep.

Being a Model Is Good for You

Thinking about the adults you are raising takes pressure off of you. Your children’s success is not about whether they are happy in any given moment, nor is it about what they do immediately after high school. Young people have a lifetime to achieve success. Our job is not to get them to the finish line, but to prepare them with the character strengths that will launch them into the future.

Remember, we are the adults who are the models for our children. Knowing this should relieve you rather than serve as an extra burden. You are being closely watched. This means you should try hard to be the kind of adult you would want your child to see. If you want the best for your child, you should model self-care, and take care of both your physical and emotional well-being. You should strive to reach balance between your work life and outside meaningful relationships. It means you should accept your own unevenness and elevate your strengths rather than focusing on those things you can’t change. It means that you can accept failure and see it as an opportunity for growth. It means you can acknowledge stress in your life because hiding it entirely will not prepare your children to manage their own stress. Rather, you can model positive steps to manage challenges, because that will help them develop their own repertoire of positive strategies. Perhaps above all, it means you can be happy. You shouldn’t sacrifice your own well-being for others. Sometimes we adults do so much for our own kids that we put our own needs aside. When we do that we don’t make adulthood look like much fun. We want our children, and particularly our adolescents, to look forward to rather than dread adulthood. So have fun, make adulthood look like it is a time of meaning and joy—something young people will find worth preparing for.

Moving Forward

This book is titled Building Resilience in Children and Teens, but don’t get caught in the trap of thinking it only focuses on surmounting challenges. This book is all about raising young people prepared to launch into a genuinely successful adulthood. As you read on, come back to this foundational chapter and ask yourself often, how does this strategy help me raise my child to become a successful, well-balanced adult? And, let’s repeat one more point. People are uneven. People can become happy, fulfilled, and successful adults without having each of the items we discussed perfectly in place. In fact, as long as our children love learning, have the capacity to be self-reflective, and are responsive to feedback, they will continue to grow throughout their lives.

CHAPTER 3

The Right Balance Tips the Scales Toward a Positive Future

Parenting makes life feel like a balancing act sometimes. We’re juggling our work and home lives, hoping that we are giving our kids, and ourselves, enough. We’re trying to figure out how to protect our children from unforeseen circumstances while, at the same time, preparing them to navigate life long after they are under our watchful gaze. We’re striving to help them grow to be independent while wishing they’ll choose to stay close to us. Truth be told, sometimes parenting makes us feel pretty off-balance.

You’re reading this now to help you sort out how to be an effective parent in this ever-changing world. We are here to help you along this journey, but most of this balancing act you’ll figure out as you go along, learning from both when you get it right and when you do not. You’ll reflect, grow, and come closer to what works best for your family. Luckily, your child will guide you as to what he needs in the moment, and if you remain open and responsive to his signals, you’ll hit that sweet spot more often.

What if I told you, though, that when it comes to that toughest balancing act (striking the right blend of being loving and demanding), we actually have clear information to guide you toward that sweet spot? Good news. We do! Decades of research and experience tell us how to balance love with expectations and protection with trust. We know that children and teens are more likely to achieve their academic potential, be emotionally secure, and choose safer behaviors when they are raised by balanced parents—the kind who openly display love and warmth for their children, are flexible and thoughtful to meet their needs, set expectations, and monitor them closely with clear rules and boundaries. Bonus: we also know that parents who get this balancing act right foster open communication within households and, therefore, strengthen their families.

What Is Meant by Parenting Style?

Parenting style was first explored in the 1960s by Dr Diana Baumrind, a renowned developmental psychologist, and legions of psychologists since have continued to explore its impact on raising children and teens. While the word style could mean so many things, parenting style is about the interplay between expressed love (warmth), responsiveness (flexibility and the willingness to respond to your child’s changing needs), and demandingness (how you set and monitor rules and expectations).

Parenting style matters. We all want to keep our children safe and for them to be emotionally healthy. And we hope to guide them toward an adulthood in which they will become their very best selves. We know young people do best when parents both express their caring and take active steps to ensure safe and moral behaviors in their children.

Achieving this balance needs ongoing attention. There is often a tension between parenting approaches rooted in loving attachment and those that take a more hands-off approach to encourage independence. A similar tension exists between those that focus on high levels of parental involvement with those that encourage children to learn from life’s lessons. Your family’s distinct circumstances may push or pull you toward one approach or another. These circumstances may be influenced by cultural values, issues affecting the safety of your community, or your teen’s unique needs.

We all come to parenting with unique strengths. Read on and consider how to build on your existing strengths while moving toward the approach proven to lead to the best academic, emotional, and behavioral outcomes for young people. You’ll learn that you can apply it in a way that works for your family.

The 4 Parenting Styles

Which of the following statements best describes what you might say to your child or the thoughts that drive your approach to parenting?

You’ll do what I say. Why? Because I said so!

I really enjoy you. I know that if you think of me as a friend, you’ll feel comfortable coming to me. I will spend high-quality time with you, and I trust you to make your own decisions.

Kids will be kids. I figure that if they get into serious trouble, I will get involved.

I love you. I am not your friend, I am your parent, and that’s even better. I’m going to let you make your share of mistakes, but for the things that might affect your safety, you’ll do as I say. And if something could influence your morality, we are going to sit down and think it through together. My job is to keep you safe and stand by you as you become your best self.

Each of these styles has its strengths. The reason this must be pointed out is threefold. First, we were all parented and likely mimic (or reject entirely) what our parents did. It is important to remember that however our parents raised us, they likely did so with the best of intentions. And, hopefully you turned out fine. If you recognize the strengths of each of these styles, you can recognize they were not implemented with malice…and then you can move on. Second, you might recognize yourself using a parenting style that will not be recommended here. Once you recognize the strength of your existing style, you can choose to improve on it. Finally, you will likely share parenting responsibilities with other adults who care about your children (spouse, former spouses, grandparents, etc). It is important to know that they also want the best for your child, and that their style has