Play for Resilience
September 25, 2024
Empower and Encourage Interdependence in Children and Teens
October 9, 2024
As we help kids develop their resilience, we need to keep their developmental stage in mind. Resilience is the ability to recover from, or keep moving forward during, challenges. Challenges are different at different stages. Things that are challenging for 4-year-olds are easy for big kids. And things that little kids think nothing of, like singing in public, are a major challenge for older kids. While there are predictable stages of development, children move through them on their own timetable. As we work to support resilience in kids, we need to consider how things are challenging for this child, at this stage of their development.
Social-Emotional Changes
One area of constant change is social-emotional awareness. Imagine a child wearing their favorite shirt, and someone makes a sarcastic comment, “isn’t that a pretty shirt!” How this is received is going to depend a lot on the child’s developmental stage. A little one might miss the sarcasm all together and just say “thank you!” An early teen is likely to roll their eyes if the comment is made by an adult and to feel devastated if the speaker is a peer. An older teen is more likely to consider the source and to decide how to react, if at all. All of this is modified by personality and how secure that young person is feeling at the moment. It is helpful to keep a child’s ever-changing developmental stage in mind as we support their ability to be resilient.
There are many ways that supportive adults make a difference in children’s development. Everything you do to help kids grow physically stronger, build social-emotional skills, develop their abilities, and explore their interests adds to their capacity to cope with whatever life brings their way. Here are a couple specific points that focus on resilience.
Support a Strong Emotional Vocabulary – with Room for “Bad Words”
An emotional vocabulary starts with little kids learning “sad” vs “mad.” As kids get older it is important to keep expanding their vocabulary. The more fine-tuned a child can be about their emotional state, the more information they have about what to do next. Ask, “Are you angry or frustrated?” Help them explore what led to these emotions, “what about that was frustrating?” As kids learn swear words, and rules against using them, there are times they become so angry they can’t talk for fear of breaking a rule about using “bad words.” I say, “we are having a private conversation, use whatever words you need as long as you aren’t cussing me out.” Let them use the words they have. One child said, “I am so stuffed up with angriness I am – argh!!!” That was great. My next comment was, “what would help you unstuff?” As kids grow, they need people who can hear them share all their feelings, including those that are most easily expressed with strong language.
Notice When Developmental Expectations Bring Challenges
Driven partly by changes in the child, and partly by social expectations, there are common developmental challenges at every age and stage. The phrase “You’re too big to act like that” pops out when a child is at the threshold of a developmental change. Life just got more challenging, and they don’t yet have the skills to manage it, at least not on the days they are tired. While it may indeed be time for them to start school or earn their own spending money it helps if adults realize that it is hard work to level up. They may make mistakes or not handle things the way you would like. They will be learning the resilience skills of perseverance, recovering from mistakes, and asking for help. In some cases, they have high expectations for themselves and don’t feel comfortable sharing how much they are struggling. Adults can provide patience, encouragement, and support as kids work to meet a new challenge.
Under Construction – Adult Patience Needed
Just as kids get taller and no longer fit into their jeans, their social, emotional, and cognitive changes result in them no longer fitting into established routines and ways of relating with others. A classic example is the school aged child who turns into a junior attorney. All of a sudden (it seems) they want to negotiate everything! Parents hear, “my friend’s parents let them….” Congratulations, the child is learning logic. They realize that life is full of rules that somebody just made up and they want to be a decision maker. It’s exhausting when daily routines become a subject of debate. When a crawling baby is determined to climb the stairs, an early teen wants more emotional space, and an older teen makes decisions without talking to any adult they are growing. You support long-term resilience by making room for new behaviors that allow kids to grow and learn.
Consider Your Role
As challenges occur consider how much of the problem the child or teen can tackle on their own. In the short run it can be easier, as an adult, to simply fix the problem. In support of a child’s growing abilities, it is helpful to consider how much support is truly needed. Consider a hot stove. You are going to grab a toddler before they get close, give a grade school child experience and close supervision as they learn, remind a teen of what they know, and commiserate with a college student if they burn dinner. For whatever problem a child or teen is facing consider how you can be helpful. Do they need active rescue, parenting, teaching, reminding, coaching, or company? It will depend on their developmental stage, the task at hand, and the seriousness of the problem.
Keeping developmental changes in mind allows you to support resilience skills during a child’s journey to adulthood. Notice what seems to be catching all their attention and think about how that is being driven by their physical, social, emotional and social growth. Provide opportunities for them to use their full vocabulary to tell you how they really, really feel. Provide support when new skills are not keeping up with growing expectations. Work with them to adjust rules and routines as they grow in maturity. Your role in their life will also be in constant flux during this journey. Be sure you get support for yourself as the children you care about change from week to week.
Child development is a process of change with overlapping skills and abilities growing over time. Most development is dependent on a supportive environment to fully blossom into abilities that allow a child to become a capable and resilient adult. Humans are adaptable, there is no one perfect environment that is necessary. Instead, kids benefit from a multi-faceted, supportive, imperfect and resilient network of caring adults that support them as they learn and grow.
Peace,
Laura
* This is the fourth blog in a series about building resilience in kids. The first three point five are: Growing Resilience, Staying Calm, Join Team Child, and (the .5 blog post) Play for Resilience. Your comments and questions are welcome on this topic and can be sent to resilience@learnmodelteach.com
* We will have a Q&A Zoom about Growing Resilience in Kids next month, October 17, 2024 6:30pm EDT.
The zoom link for both of these will be sent out through the email list at LearnModelTeach. If you don’t already receive these you can join our community at https://learnmodelteach.com/#connect.
* Laura offers Parent Coaching if you would like support from her. You can schedule a free 15 minute discovery call.
