Cultivating Resilience: You Can Do Hard Things
What is resilience?
Resilience is a term that is often used to describe our ability to bounce back from, or keep going, through hard things. Surely everyone can think of a time in their life where they’ve experienced difficult circumstances. Perhaps it involved moving to a new place, a health complication, or a job or class that proved challenging. Resilience is what helps us positively adapt to whatever life brings!
Practice makes… resilient?
Absolutely! While some people tend to be more resilient than others, researchers agree that resilience is something that can be grown through practice. This is great news for all of us!
If you’re a parent, you have countless examples of resilience. Nature has required that you be flexible with lost sleep, inconvenient diaper changes, and unexpected messes. Flexibility is required for resilience and nothing will stretch you quite like parenting!
The even better news is that you are not done growing, parents. We are all lifelong learners, whether we want to be or not! The more you can see yourself in this light and open yourself up to opportunities for growth and flexibility, the more you will benefit - and so will your family!
Cultivating resilience in children
The most important factor for resilience in children is the presence of a stable, caring parent or adult. While many resilience skills are grown in childhood, adults who work on strengthening these skills are modeling positive, resilient behaviors for their children. Cultivating resilience in yourself has the added benefit of positively influencing your children!
Start with a Growth Mindset
A Growth Mindset is the belief that abilities can improve through practice and effort. Research has shown that a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed mindset, is important for success in future endeavors.
Linked here are a few videos that explain growth mindset:
Growth Mindset Intro (Spanish)
“Experience is the teacher of all things,” according to Julius Caesar and common wisdom. As we all go through trials in life, some bigger than others, it’s enough that we come out the other side. Sometimes we can pinpoint a lesson we learned from an experience, but sometimes, all we know is that we made it through. Keeping going, making it through, putting one foot in front of the other - this, too, is resilience - and you have it because you’re here! Let’s honor the resilience that brought you to where you are now and continue to cultivate that growth mindset for your, and your child’s, future success!
