I'm sure we all want to teach our children that the world is flowery and that everything in life goes smoothly for them. That’s a completely normal feeling for any parent. After all, once we have children, they become the center of our universe. But let’s face it: life is full of challenges, and no amount of smoothing things out will keep your children from experiencing bumps along the way. So, if you truly want to protect your child in a meaningful way, the best approach is to cultivate resilience within them. Here are some tips that will, therefore, help you teach your children to have the resilience that they need in life.
Problem-Solving Games
One of the best ways to instil resilience in children is through problem-solving games. By fusing the favourite thing to do ( which is playing) with a life lesson, it is more likely that they will never forget about the lesson, making it a sustainable method of teaching them how to be resilient. Consider engaging in role-play games with them, where they have to use their critical thinking to help save them from ‘the cookie monster’ or ‘ the evil pirate’. By reducing to their level and helping them understand life lessons through a language they know best they will become more equipped to face different life situations.
Daily Routines
Establishing daily routines can work wonders in helping children become resilient. This is because regardless of what may have happened the night before or how they feel in the morning, their routines remain untouched and the same ( unless there is a good reason to be flexible about it). This will unconsciously get stuck in their brains, making them know that the important aspects of life should not change because of any challenges they may have faced. Prioritising their routine will help translate into real-life life situations, making them resistant to the situations that they may face. Instead of stopping their lives due to bad things that may be happening, they will remember to keep on keeping on in any situation.
Model Resilience
One thing that you need to master is that your children mirror your behaviour and make it their own. Observation plays a key in moulding children’s behaviour, therefore, if they see you facing difficulties with a positive attitude and a determination to keep going, they’ll be more likely to adopt a similar mind. However, if you cry at every challenge you are faced with, your kids will also see this and adopt this, making them exposed to life challenges. You should, therefore, show your children how to learn from failure and keep pushing forward by doing it yourself (not by merely commanding them to do it).
Teach Them About Emotional Regulation
It is important that you teach your children what feelings are and how to address them. This is because they are just starting in life, they don't understand what being stressed, sad or angry means. All they just know is that they aren't okay, which may be very confusing for their tiny minds to fathom. So it is your job to help them identify several emotions and feelings and name them so that they understand what they are feeling. After this, you now have to teach them how to manage their emotions. It may be as simple as teaching them breathing techniques when they're mad or sad or restraint when they are angry. This lesson on emotional regulation will help them exercise resilience when they are faced with difficult life situations, making them ready to tackle life problems without acting carelessly.
Encourage Them To Be Independent
You should stop sheltering your children too much if you want them to grow into resilient beings. If your kids are continuously dependent on you for all the small decisions that they should be making for themselves at their respective ages, it will create an unhealthy cycle of dependence which will stagnate their thinking skills. Instead of allowing this unhealthy dependence, gradually assign responsibilities to your children and let them figure out how to tackle the smaller problems that come with these tasks. When they fail, help them up so that next time, they now have the knowledge to tackle the problem on their own. If you gradually do this, you will provide them with a framework for resilience, which they will get to use in any life situation they are faced with.
Promote A Gratitude Mindset
One of the most important lessons that you will ever teach your children is gratitude. Due to them being used to a routine of having everything provided for them, they may think that this is the general standard of the world that they are entitled to. However, by showing them different situations where things aren't always as perfect as they are used to and teaching them to be grateful, even for the smallest of things, you will cultivate a positive mindset in them. Therefore, when faced with difficult times, your kids will still be able to celebrate their small wins. This ability to be grateful will translate into them being positive even during the different storms they will face in life.
Don't Be A 'Yes' Man
I'm pretty sure that every time your child bats their eyes at you, you instantly want to offer them everything you have ( and maybe even the things you don't have). However, you need to set boundaries when it comes to the things that you give your children or allow them to do. If you are strongly against something that they are asking you for, use these moments as teaching opportunities and explain the reasons behind your decision to them. This will help them to understand the concept of boundaries and to handle rejection gracefully, promoting them to be more resilient beings.