Raising Resilient
Children
Roxanne Louh, PsyD, PA
Licensed Psychologist
Created by Roxanne Louh, PA,
2012.
Finding a Balance
  The
first step is finding and maintaining a
BALANCE.
  Identity as a PIE
  Children define themselves as friends, as
students, as athletes, as family members, as
having interests, as having faith, etc,
  Children need to be tasting and enjoying
every piece of their pie!
  The risk of imbalance? Narrow definition of
self, more likely to crumble at dissapointment.
Resilience
 Question:
What slice should we
be feeding our children if we
want them to be a good
student? What about having
lots of friends?
Resilience
 ALL
OF THEM!!! That creates
BALANCED self worth,
 Resilience comes from balance
 Nothing in one part of our life
should throw us off in the rest.
 What principles should guide us
in all aspects of our pie?
Most important part of the
recipe!
  Galations,
5:22 – The Fruits of the spirit.
Recipe for a Resilient Life
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Lets build upon that recipe with 7 more key
ingredients for living a RESILIENT LIFE. Please
remember however, that without the fruits of the
spirit as your foundation, the recipe won’t work –
you would have bread without the yeast, it simply
wouldn’t rise.
1. Perseverance
2. Avoidance of the Overcompensating Parent
3. The “Right” Praise
4. Optimism
5. Learning How to Problem Solve Through Emotion
6. Cultivating Passions.
7. Learning to Enjoy Your Children.
Perseverance
Perseverance – The ability to stick with a tough
task or a challenge and not give up.
  A stronger predictor of success than innate smarts
(inborn ability).
  Much of the time when it comes to inborn ability,
when we are good at some skill, we stick with it
because it comes easy, but if it doesn’t, we avoid
it.
  No one wants to do something that isn’t fun??
  We have to make the connection that sticking
with something can lead to mastery.
  Asian Study on Insolvable Problem.
 
What Did Einstein Say?
  “Most
People say that it is the intellect
which makes a great scientist. They are
wrong, it is character.
  “It’s not that I’m smarter, it’s just that I stay
with problems longer.”
  “Genius is 1% talent and 99% hard work.”
  Nobody
has ever succeeded without
perseverance.
Perseverance
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How do we get there? We learn to persevere
when we are successful at a challenging task.
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Key is “just right challenges” & “ample time.”
When deeply involved, resist the natural urge to
help.
Be a role model for perseverance – don’t shield
children from struggle, highlight role of effort.
Foster frustration tolerance – Stay calm with self
and them! (frontal lobe)
Embrace mistakes – Seeing failure as a form of
feedback on how to improve. “A person who
never made a mistake, never tried anything new.”
Asian countries – when students make a mistake.
The Overcompensating Parent
  Anxiety
Disorders – The MOST common mental
illness facing our country today.
  One in eight children are affected.
  What are we so nervous about???
  Helicopter parents - Protecting and Shielding
from natural mistakes and disappointments in
life. Sometimes less is more….
  How do we react to forgotten homework,
boredom, social rejection, etc.
  Full autonomy not good either – finding the
balance.
The Overcompensating Parent
  God
designed us with everything we
need to manage disappointment.
  Studies show that exposure to mild levels
of stress (from making mistakes, having
disappointment and dealing with
challenges) actually produces a
THICKENING of our prefrontal cortex as
new connections are built.
The Overcompensating Parent
  What
does our Prefrontal Cortex do?
  Problem
Solving
  Reasoning
  Decision Making/Judgement
  Planning/Organization
  Critical Thinking
  Perseverance
  Impulse Control
The “Right” Type of Praise
The overcompensating parent is also dishing out
lots of praise. That’s a good thing, right???
  The Self-Esteem Movement - Started for good
reason.
  The generation of excess. Children are now less
resilient than ever?
  Offering an overabundance of the wrong type of
praise has created children who are now more
worried about PERFORMING than LEARNING
  We have taken away the inherent reward in
learning.
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The “Right” Type of Praise
  So
how should we praise in a way that does
foster resilience? Focus on “PROCESS” rather
than the “END RESULT.”
Emphasize hard Work and determination over
Innate ability
  Praise specific skills to keep your credibility.
  Emphasize enjoyment
  Praise Pride in Work
  Emphasize improvements
  Ask for their evaluation. “What do you like most
about your drawing?”
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Optimism
  Resilience
comes form the belief that “I
can overcome my negative situation.”
  Martin Seligman – Leading Psychologist in
the field of optimism.
  It’s not situations alone that lead to our
feelings, its our interpretation of them.
  The Optimist vs. The Pessimist
Optimist vs. Pessimist
  For
Optimists:
Positive Events (like getting a good grade) are
seen as GLOBAL (happens in many situations),
PERMANENT (will most likely always occur), and
PERSONAL (because of MY hard work).
  Negative Events (like getting a bad grade) are
seen as SPECIFIC to the situation (just this test),
TEMPORARY (won’t happen again) and the
result of an EXTERNAL FACTOR (not necessarily
my ability – didn’t spend enough time).
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Optimist vs. Pessimist
  For
Pessimist:
  Negative
event: “I got a bad test grade
because I can’t do math (global and
personal), it’s just too hard, I’ll never be
good at it (permanent).
  Positive event: I got a good grade because
the teacher made the test easy (external
reason), next time that won’t be the case
(temporary), I never get good grades
(global).
How Optimism affects Resilience
Optimists interpret events in a way that leads to
the belief that “I can do something to fix this.”
  Pessimists interpret events in a way that leads to
“Learned Helplessness,” – “What’s the point of
trying if I’m just not any good, and I am ALWAYS
going to struggle and if I am successful its just luck.
  Watch for language that generalizes, “this AWAYS
happens,” or is permanent, “I will NEVER be good
at it.”
  Guide them in seeing what can be done about it.
“What external factors contributed?” “Have there
been times, this wasn’t true?”
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Emotions and Problem Solving
  Feelings
are Functional-they help us identify
needs. One thing I have learned as a
therapist…..NOT TO FIX, BUT TO GUIDE OTHERS
IN FIGURING OUT WHAT THEY NEED TO FIX.
  When kids have a problem – Please don’t
SOLVE IT FOR THEM! They will never learn to
identify their own needs or how to get them
met!
  Listen + Validate = empathy, “I can see why
you felt that way.” Ability to solve problems
requires empathy. Seeing a problem from
several different perspectives.
Problem Solving
  After
Identifying the situation and how they
felt, remember to ask questions:
  “What’s that like for you?” (tell me more)
  “How do you make sense of that?” (Their
interpretation)
  “What do you want to be different?” (the
need – mat not always be the obvious)
  “What are some ways you could get there?”
  “What do you think would happen if you tried
that?”
Cultivating Passions
Passions FUEL persistence and increase the
NATURAL desire to learn.
  Stop taking away their natural obsession and
replacing it with intellectual stimulation!
  Persistence GENERALIZES from one circumstance
to another.
  We stick with what we like, we experience success
because we stuck with it
  “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is
the key to success. If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful.” -Albert Einstein
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Enjoy Your Children
  Remember
to enjoy your children.
  “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life
stimulates the creative mind.” – Albert
Einstein - no stimulation needed!
  Remember – Endure, Engage, Empathize,
Equip, Expose, Encourage, and Enjoy!
  THANK YOU!!!!!!!
  QUESTIONS??