For most of my life, I thought of myself as a tough person. I met challenges, I met deadlines, I survived a physical assault. I worked hard, I played hard, and I kept going. And, for most of my life, I thought that was a good thing. That being tough was a badge of honor that I could – and should – pin to my chest.
Last fall, though, adrift in some difficult emotional waters, I confided to a friend that I was surprised I was feeling so overwhelmed by trying to take care of two children under two. After all, I said, I always thought I was so tough.
“You are tough,” she replied, “but you’re not very resilient. And being resilient is what it takes to raise two babies at once.”
At the time, I didn’t really understand what she meant. Weren’t toughness and resilience the same?
Not by a long shot, as it turns out.
Toughness, as I’ve come to understand it, is about the façade we present to the world: the exterior mask that may hide the internal turmoil. Toughness helps you keep from crying when a nasty schoolmate makes fun of your outfit. Toughness lets you go back to work, still black-and blue, bones broken, in the same neighborhood where you were recently attacked. Toughness is about the steely look distracting from the nails bitten down to the bloody nub. Toughness is more about appearances than about feelings.
Resilience, on the other hand, is about actual recovery. Resilience is about integrating the negative experience, dealing with it, and bouncing back anyway. Resilience is one of those clown-shaped punching bags with the weight in the bottom: no matter how many times you hit it, it pops right back up.
In Chapter 5 of Raising Happiness, Christine Carter suggests that parents can help train their children to be emotionally literate by establishing secure attachments with them and by teaching them to deal with negative emotions.
The first part of that equation made perfect sense to me and felt natural to my parenting approach – as, I bet, it does to most of you. I try to be sensitive to my sons and their needs. I try to respond consistently to those needs. I spend lots of time with them. I listen to them and talk with them (even if Tiny Baby still isn’t the world’s greatest conversationalist). The boys have secure attachments with me, with Husband, with their extended family, and with a handful of other beloved caregivers.
Check.
But the second part? Major A-ha moment.
According to Carter, who cites the work of noted researcher Dr. John Gottman:
[E]motion coaching is the key to raising happy, resilient, and well-adjusted kids. [Gottman's] research shows that it is not enough to be a warm, engaged, and loving parent. Warmth and attention foster certain aspects of emotional literacy, but they don’t necessarily teach kids how to deal with negative feelings such as sadness and frustration. Emotion coaching does. The reality, of course, is that life inevitably involves pain and suffering, disappointment and failure, loss and betrayal. Much as we would like to, we cannot protect our children from these things. We can, however, teach them to cope with the difficult and often painful emotions that arise out of life’s less happy moments.
This paragraph stopped me in my tracks.
I had an idyllic childhood. I loved my family (still do, in fact). I had a handful of good friends. I had many of those secure attachments Carter writes about. But it was also a period of time that didn’t ask much of me in terms of resilience. I experienced little in the way of “pain and suffering, disappointment and failure, loss and betrayal.” And so I never really developed the emotional skills to deal with them when they did occur.
And – the A-ha moment continues – I realize that, rather than teaching my own sons how to cope with negative feelings, I’ve been trying to recreate my childhood for them and, in doing so, offer them a world in which negative feelings are few and far between.
I’ve been trying to create a perfect world for them to live in rather than teach them how to live in the imperfect one we’ve got.
I suppose there are worse crimes than trying to manufacture a conflict-free existence for one’s children, but I’m ready to embark on a (hopefully) less Sisyphean task: I’ll try to teach myself, and then my kids, the resilience we all need to stay afloat in these choppy seas.
Are you tough? Are you resilient? If you have children, how do you teach them to be resilient?
P.S. Please check out Katy Keim‘s review of Chapters 4-6 of Raising Happiness and the fascinating discussion in the comments section that follows.
Image: The Office Punching Bag by Chris Denbow via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
{ 88 comments… read them below or add one }
Hmm, I haven’t read that far, but I’m guessing my “quitcher bellyachin’” response to negative emotions isn’t exactly emotion coaching either, huh?
In certain situations I suppose it could be, but, in general, no, I don’t think it would be Carter’s first recommendation. :)
Toughness vs. resilience – I think I’ll be referring back to this in my thoughts throughout the day as I face a few very difficult challenges in my life. But I agree with you, I was very struck by that section too. And the irony? I did face my share of pain as a very young child. As you know, my mother passed when I was just 4. Has that made me any more emotionally resilient? The short answer no. In fact, one would wager that exposure to such a devastating reality at such a young age has caused the reverse problem. But that’s a discussion for another time. The point I”m trying to make, is that there is balance to be had. I absolutely buy into the whole argument about “emotional coaching,” I read this chapter greedily (who am I kidding, I’ve read most of them that way), but I’m not entirely sure she did a great job of addressing what this means for children across the ages. And that’s where I struggle. I don’t want to water down the message with my own experience, which was, I acknowledge, extreme. But I admit, I tend to shelter my 3 year old from pain. Maybe I missed the entire point, but I also think there is something to be said for our role as parents to protect our kids. Not just from physical dangers, but emotional dangers as well. And even as I write this, I know that is the point of what she writes in the chapter, but I think I’m having trouble synthesizing it.
I grew up fast…at only 4 the things I had to cope with have coloured my entire life. Of course there was not way I could have been properly sheltered from the death of my mother. That’s not what I’m suggesting, but what I have learned is that I’m going to work darn hard to let my kids be kids, carefree kids, as long as I can.
Thanks for this post Kristen, and for this ongoing discussion. It really is tremendous.
If I had to pick a single watchword for my life right now, it would be BALANCE. And the balance you speak of – protecting our kids from experiences that will make them face negative emotions all the while teaching them how to handle those emotions – is one that I also find incredibly elusive.
My default mode is definitely to protect them, but I think I take it too far at times. I never want them to feel physical or emotional pain, but I think frustration is something that it is important for them to experience from time to time. And I definitely rush in too quickly when I see them start to get frustrated.
What I’ve decided to do is to work on resilience by allowing them to face the more innocuous negative emotions, all the while continuing to protect them from the bigger ones.
Does that make sense?
What an articulate and thoughtful post, Kristen. Much food for thought here.
Your distinctions between toughness and resilience make sense, though I might say that toughness runs deeper than appearances only. Perhaps that is the “mental toughness” thata melds into physical toughness. The mind and spirit joining with the body to say I will tough this out. I will face my fear of that neighborhood where I was attacked. I will get out of bed and parent, though every part of my body hurts.
Whatever it may be that calls for physical and emotional steeliness to get through a situation.
I believe that comes from force of will, a determination to not be ruled by fear, and other aspects of strength of character.
I do think toughness can be learned – with or without models for it. I believe resilience will be learned with or without models as well. Life will require it – of most of us. What models for it may provide are examples of resilience with a measure of grace, or humor.
Your babies are still so young. As they hit pre-school and elementary school, the disappointments invariably will come. They will be small, and you will teach them to bounce back. Resilience is that bounce back quality of the punching bag clown, as you so beautifully described it.
I’m dealing with this constantly with my teenager these days. Wins and losses, both. It’s hard to see him take the punches, whatever they may be. But he bounces back. What is hard is for us to stand back and not “fix” everything, because eventually, of course, we cannot.
Terrific post. The discussion will be fascinating.
Your comment makes me wonder if I’m not giving enough credit to toughness. I know I have benefited from my ability to “tough out” certain emotional and physical pitfalls. I suppose what I wish I was better at is the actual dealing with the emotions when necessary instead of just moving on from them.
Oh dear, here I go again, thinking about balance – this time balancing toughness and resilience.
Thoughtful, nuanced piece. I don’t think I have thought of this distinction so explicitly. That said, I read this and nodded. There is indeed a stark difference between toughness and resilience. I think I have bits of both in me and I think I have been – unconsciously and unwittingly – teaching both to my girls.
Interestingly (or not), starting my blog was in so many ways about cracking that tough facade – because it is a facade for all of us – and admitting struggle. As I write each day, weaving words about challenges and struggles and triumph, I think I am actually embracing resilience over toughness.
Thank you for rendering this distinction – heretofore opaque – more clear for me.
Fantastic, Kristen-esque post :)
Wow. I had never thought before about blogging as a means of embracing resilience. But how true your observation is. By airing our vulnerabilities and, yes, our insecurities, what are we doing but digging up some of our negative emotions, analyzing them, and then getting back up and moving on?
Thanks for this food for thought, Aidan.
I love the distinction between resilience and toughness. I’ve always considered myself resilient, maybe because I learned how to deal with negative emotions well. I’m trying to do the same for my children. Let them know it is okay to feel crummy about something, but that there are ways to move on and let go.
Please feel free to share your methods of teaching kids resilience any time, Charlotte. :)
I think resilience might be the single most important thing I want to somehow impart to my children. I think it’s absolutely critical for happiness, success, contentment. The problem? I lack it entirely. It’s one of the things I like least about myself, honestly. I am brittle & have a hard time bouncing back. Alas. Maybe being aware is a good first step?
“Brittle.” Yes. That’s the perfect word for it.
Sometimes I fear that becoming aware of things only makes me more neurotic than I already am, but, yes, I hope becoming aware of my need to be more resilient is the first step in the process to actually becoming so.
As always, excellent post! I definitely fall in the tough category, not resilient. Esp since my daughter was born, it seems it takes only a small derailment for me to completely fall off the rocker.
Disclaimer: I am not reading the book nor do I have access to it as I live in Tanzania. But I’m really enjoying experiencing the book through Motherese and Coffee & Commutes! (p.s. if I was supposed to have linked back to C&C, I’m sorry I didn’t, other than reading, I have NO idea how all this blogging business works !)
I wholeheartedly agree with you and all comments so far. I feel as though I am engaged in some emotional coaching at the moment as I try and teach my 1 yr old that Mommy can’t hold her all the time, esp when I am busy preparing her food/bottle and that it’s okay to cry about it, but it won’t change the outcome. Maybe that doesn’t count!
But I like what BLW said that resilience (and toughness) come from force of will. I would add to that experience as well. I just think it’s only through challenges that we learn what we’re capable of coping with. So I guess the parenting role comes in with cultivating the force of will and the post-experience coping. But how will we know if we’re emotionally coaching correctly??
So many great points here, RebaLu.
First, let me say that it sounds like we are sharing the experience of mothering one year olds who prefer being in our arms to just about anything else.
Second, I appreciate your use of the word “derailment.” That is exactly how I experience things. I pay little attention to the ten things that go right in a day, but I am often undone – derailed – by the one thing that goes wrong.
Finally, great question about how we might know when we are emotion coaching successfully. According to Carter, the process of emotion coaching has three steps: 1. “Label and Validate the Feelings at Hand”; 2. “Deal with the Bad Behavior (if applicable)”; and 3. “Problem-Solve.” I suppose, then, that we might know that we have done a good job when our kids start to label their own feelings and solve problems on their own – without our intervention and without becoming angry or frustrated.
Something tells me our babies aren’t quite ready to master their emotions, but I’m grateful to have a goal in mind as I start the journey of parenthood with my young sons.
I never stop to think of the difference between tough and resilient. Thank you for bringing it to light. Living with my ex-husband for so long and then the subsequent divorce made my children and I both tough and resilient. We didn’t have a choice. It was either sink or swim.
My hubby has a phrase that he learned in the Navy: Rigid Flexibility. In other words, you have to be tough and stand your ground. But at the same time be wise enough to adapt your plan and resilient enough to bounce back from any pitfalls.
Great post Kritsten!
“Rigid Flexibility.” Another great phrase courtesy of Erica and her husband. (First your thermostat quote from our discussion last week, which I’m still thinking about, and now this.)
Thank you!
This is what I have been telling my wife ever since the twins were born: they need to deal with negative emotions.
Especially boredom. There is nothing more valuable than a high tolerance for boredom. Would I like to play with them more? Sure, but it’s not about me.
I’d definitely put boredom in the category of innocuous negative emotions (like frustration) – ones that we all need to be able to cope with, and ones that aren’t going to hurt our kids to experience.
Thanks, anonymouseducator, for visiting and for taking the time to leave a comment.
Thank you for this. I am so guilty of trying to create a mostly conflict-free environment. I worry about having to deal with their negative emotions, mainly because I am still learning how to deal with my own! But they do need to learn how to help navigate their own emotional eddies.
Thank you for visiting Motherese and for your comment!
Oh, how I love a good nautical metaphor and “navigate their own emotional eddies” is a fine one indeed. And I hear you completely: until we figure out how to deal with our own emotional whirlpools, how effective can we be as GPS devices for our kids?
I’m still processing this, so I don’t have much insight to add to the discussion yet. But I wanted to say that this really resonated with me and I appreciate it very much. Much to consider.
This one’s going to be percolating in my brain all day. What an interesting distinction.
I am not resilient. I hate that about myself. It is my NUMBER ONE goal for my girls–I want them to be persistent, dogged, confident in their ability to bounce back from struggle. And yet, I really have never thought about HOW to nurture that quality in them.
Dang! Would my copy of this book arrive already? I really think I need it.
What an insightful blog – love it and keep up the great writing.
Thanks for visiting, smashingonline, and for your kind words.
I love your distinction, Kristen, between being tough and being resilient. This is EXTREMELY helpful! I found this post to be quite moving; so hard for us parents to think of our children in pain (or even just disappointed). But experience pain they will; that pain will pass more quickly when they know how to cope with it.
And thanks to you, Christine, I feel like I’m starting to understand how to help them – and myself – learn to cope.
Great Blog, Thanks for sharing :)
Thanks for visiting Motherese!
You are so right – it’s in the “doing” that defines us! What we do with adversity makes us who we are, not who we appear to be.
I went through emotional horrors as a child that know one could imagine that any one human could possibly bare….But yet, I’m still here…I never complained or said why me…Is that resilience…Maybe.
I’m sorry that your childhood forced you to call so heavily upon your reserves of resilience. I’m grateful that you survived and were willing to share your perspective here. Thank you, ramonakent.
One would think that young children are for the most part resilient. I have seen parents give comforting words to calm them down and then they’re good as new. [sorry if i'm understating]
It’s when the child gets older that he is not as resilient, and must mature: eventually he must develop a tough emotional skin if he is to deal with people. [this is just a theory]
I think it’s a good theory. As kids get older and both their emotions and the challenges to those emotions become more complex, their need for resilience is much greater. And that’s why I’m interested in helping cultivate resilience – to the extent that I can – in my sons before they really need it.
Thanks for stopping by!
I like your thinking here. We too spend lots of time protecting the little ones from anything and everything. But we’ll be hurting them in the long-run if they fail to develop coping strategies.
This is such an important issue. I, like you, had an idyllic childhood. But I had a pretty rough adolescence, and I think that’s where I got my resilience. “I am resilient” is definitely part of my self-concept (I don’t think “I am tough” is, though, so maybe you and I together would be one bad ass lady?), and I think it’s because I had some hard formative years (mean girls and even meaner boys). I love what you say here because I need to remember that learning to cope with the hard stuff is far more valuable than avoiding the hard stuff because the former is a permanent skill and the latter is a futile pursuit. Such meaty stuff, K. Love it.
Thanks so much, Lauren.
If we run into any “mean girls” at BlogHer, we’ll have to stand together, arms linked. No one will be able to match our winning combination of toughness and resilience! :)
Oh this is SO good. SO good. SO good to learn when our kids are small. I did have things to overcome through childhood. Terribly hard things, but not horribly terribly life-altering. But I still DID NOT learn to accept my negative feelings. I think we come with some kind of twisted desire to avoid pain at any cost. Sometimes to the point of stuffing and stuffing them until we are altogether numb and “tough.” Then we’re depressed or addicted or lonely and always a little bit lost. It took me so long to even begin to accept that life is always about suffering, and that it never gets easy and we never completely learn how to sail on through unscathed. We have to learn to FEEL, really feel all things and even embrace the negative feelings as stepping stones to a better life, a better version of ourselves.
I so badly want to teach my boys that. So sometimes I don’t rescue them (obviously, if safety is involved, I do) from things that are uncomfortable. It’s SO hard to walk that fine line of allowing the discomfort of adjustment to life and feelings and at other times deciding when to save them, to steal them away from pain. It’s hard to figure out what’s too traumatic and what’s just life, letting them live it for themselves while continuing to communicate about all of it. So hard.
Great post!
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We are in agreement, my friend. On all of it.
I do not think that you need to teach your kids these strategies in a structured and planned way. I believe that you can teach them to be understanding through your own actions and they will learn that empathy. I think when it becomes difficult is when our children are in the care of others (ie school, day care, nanny) that we need to be vigilant of what they are learning there. The only way to do that is to talk to them and listen to them. They need to want to tell us how they see others cope and have discussions with us. So do not worry if you give your kids a perfect world, dont try to change it, your world should just be a safe place. They will experience plenty of adversity outside of the home, it is our job to listen to there stories (no matter how trite).
Thank you for this different perspective on things, Joely. The word that really stood out to me from your comment was “safe.” I suppose that, perhaps even more than being happy, I want my kids to be safe (in all senses of the word). And you’re right, I’m afraid, about the world and the adversity that it will inevitably throw at our kids.
You’ve really made me think: why not strive for a perfect world at home since they’re guaranteed not to live in one once they walk through the door?
Hi Kristen. What an incredible blog. At first, I was flabergasted by Carter’s idea of emotion-coaching, or “teaching them to cope with emotions such as anger, anxiety, fear” and to add to that list — impatience, frustration. I stopped at this idea and thought about how I handle my own emotions. This chapter impressed me and made me realize that I have always been one to avoid talking and thinking about negative emotions. I have always put on a happy face and gone about life. But ever since my son was born, it has been harder to just put on that happy face, to avoid my impatience and frustration. I think that having a child slaps you in the face with who you really are. For me, I am a perfectionist; I am impatient; and I am easily frustrated when things don’t go my way or according to plan — and the list goes on. But Carter’s quotation of “teaching them [our children] how to express and cope with their negative emotions” really resonated with me as I myself work on better or more responsibly expressing my emotions — impatience, frustration, anger — and how to cope with them and realize they are natural. I saw myself becoming impatient and frustrated with my son when, for instance, he wouldn’t eat, and I did not like my responses. I feared I was teaching him to react in anger when he himself became frustrated. So, I have tried to be more responsible with my emotions. But I really like this idea of labeling and validating our emotions. And I want to use my own struggles to teach my son that it is okay to be frustrated, that it has a place in our emotional world. Then, when I teach him about being responsible with his emotions, I am hopefully making him stronger and more resilient.
Hi Amelia – Thanks for being here again, for reading, and for sharing your experience. One part of your comment was particularly resonant to me: the extent to which I too became increasingly impatient and more easily frustrated with motherhood. And I have the same fear that you do: by showing my boys my angry reactions to my impatience and frustration, I model for them less-than-ideal ways of dealing with negative emotions.
Here’s hoping that reading this book and having conversations like these will help us learn enough resilience to be able to teach it to our boys!
I’m not a parent, but I loved this post. It had different meaning to me, especially the part on “tough” and “resillience”. Thanks so much, Kristen.
I feel like I need to sit down and have a long, long talk with you. This is so important. I can’t believe you are already on to it already! You are so ahead of the game.
I, too, had a wonderful childhood. Perfect really. In my mind it was. But my Dad died when I was 19 and guess what, I coped! I don’t know how, but I did. I think it had to do with all the love we had in our family. And my close relationship to my Dad made his passing easier. Weird. But I knew him and felt his love. I still do, everyday.
Now, to our children. I have been in the process of working with the principal of our elementary school and talking about the very thing at the heart of your post–resiliency. She works with kids everyday and what she fears is their lack of resiliency. For example, as a good parent we don’t want our kid to fail. We swoop in and fix it. But our kids need to learn to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and move on. As a parent, I find this so hard to do. I want to get in there and help them, make it better, easier.
Every kid now gets a trophy for playing in a soccer league or baseball league. It used to be just the best players. But that seemed so cruel. Now, at parties there are seats for every child when they play “musical chairs.” It seems more just.
We want the best but in the process I think we are not letting our little ones develop what they need to function in life.
None of this is easy, but if I had it to do over again, I don’t think I would have been as eager to fix everything for my kids. They need to know they are able to cope.
When my 16-year-old told me the other night that he wasn’t happy, I felt devastated. What could I do to ‘fix’ his unhappiness. Of course, I realize he has to find his own happiness, but as a mother I want to help and help immediately.
The notion of love and warmth and engaging parents feels so right. BUT, stop and make sure you are not over nurturing–and remember to always have your own life.
Great post. As always
Thanks so much for all of these insights, Terry.
As a former teacher, I know well the phenomenon of parents trying to solve every problem for their kids. When I was in school, if I didn’t do well on an assignment because I hadn’t prepared well enough or didn’t understand the material, the consequence was a bad grade. But when I gave bad grades to my students, I would often hear from the parents who wanted to figure out how their kids could do make-up work or extra credit.
Now that I’m a mom, I understand the feeling that you describe – and that those parents were feeling – so well, but I think you’re 100% right: we don’t do any favors for our kids when we swoop in to solve every problem for them.
P.S. On a side note, my baby’s first birthday is next week. I have been amazed by the number of presents my older son is receiving from people who are sending gifts to the little one. I know they don’t want Big Boy to feel left out on Tiny Baby’s big day and I think the gesture absolutely comes from the right place, but I have to wonder if this isn’t part of the same every-kid-gets-a-trophy phenomenon.
More and more neuropsychological studies are finding that the kids who cope the best–
are the ones who had to, at some point.
Helicopter parents need to take note. Fast.
That is fascinating – and not surprising.
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!
There is so much here Kristen. So much to think about and talk about.
I grew up with a mother who was always trying to prepare me for REALITY (translation -she was a pessimist). Always telling me not to reach too high because I might fall. She never wanted to see me hurt and I guess was protecting me and I’m pretty sure in her mind was teaching me to be resilient so that if I did fall, I could get back up. But in the end, she nailed into my mind that I could never reach the “top”. I recall once being sad in 9th grade because a certain boy didn’t “like” me. I told her my feelings and she told me “it’s ok, he’s probably out of your league so don’t try so hard…” I ended up feeling like everything was out of my league. And today, I must say, I AM pretty resilient because if I do fail at something, I tell myself, “It was probably too much to aim for anyway…” and I move on.
That being said, I DO NOT think this was the right way to be raised. I do NOT want to feel like I always have to be preparing my kids for failure or negativity. I want them to ALWAYS shoot for the stars and I’ll be there when they fall, but I o not want to dissuade them from trying again and again. I’d like to give them the “clean up” skills so they can brush themselves off and move on and I’m afraid if I talk too much about being prepared for bad things to happen, they’ll be afraid to try.
I haven’t read this chapter yet… I’m still on chapter 3 so I may be missing the point a bit but these are my initial thoughts!
Thanks so much for sharing your experience, Becca. I would have to agree with you here and think there must be some middle-ground to find: prepare our kids to deal with actual reality rather than make them expect to be disappointed.
I’m starting to see a road to the balance in my own life: allow them to deal with the more innocuous negative emotions (frustration, boredom, disappointment) but still try to protect them from the more damaging ones (real pain and suffering).
When I had two babies under two, I was crazed. The resilience comes as they age. Give yourself a break here. I know you are doing the best you can. The only advice I have is don’t jump in and fix every little thing – or every big thing. I didn’t and my girls (21, 22) are so far ahead of the game as a result. All will be well. Promise.
Thanks so much for visiting and for taking the time to comment, izziedarling! I especially love this nugget: “don’t jump in and fix every little thing – or every big thing.” Amen to that!
Like anything we do as parents, we are teaching our children how to react. Negatively, sadly, happily, joyfully…you get the drift.
My childhood taught me to be tough, to wear a mask, day in and day out, that would betray nothing that was making me feel sad, defeated and angry. I learned it from my mother.
That being said, I learned resiliency as an adult. When I learned to reach rock bottom, push off from there, and rise.
As parents, we want to protect. But in the process, we shelter so much that our children really don’t learn how to react appropriately and respond in positive ways. They need to learn how to handle themselves with grace and dignity when things don’t go their own way. And how they learn that is from us.
Kristen, we are ALL works in progress. We need to be a little gentler with ourselves, the way we handle our children when they are at a loss, and in the end, it works out. All you can do is the best you can do, and it has to be enough when you do it with a generous heart and spirit.
Resilience is a concept I’ve reflected on a lot since reading about it in “The Chemistry of Joy” – resilience being one of the key differences between someone with depression and someone without. We are each born with different levels of natural resilience “in storage” waiting to be used during stressful or emotional situations… and we each rebuild our resilience at a different rate.
I’m working to be resilient, but maybe not tough. A loss or a setback might affect me deeply at first (I’m not tough) but hopefully I’ll bounce back quickly (resilience).
As I find myself getting more and more interested in the concept of resilience over the course of this discussion, I am very grateful for the mention of this book. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks, Eva.
Utopias are not possible in this “real” world.
I applause you for raising two children on your own.
Ur awe inspiring to the rest of us.
Remain.Simple
Thanks for reading, Remain.Simple, for your comment, and for your kind words.
Just to clarify: I do have a husband who is a wonderful partner in parenting. As difficult as my “job” can be, I know how lucky I am not to be doing it alone.
Kristen,
Thank you so much for visiting my blog and for leaving your encouraging words. I wrote that one mostly to remind myself to treat others more gently and with greater compassion.
As Chesterton said, “We are all in the same lifeboat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”
I was honored that Aidan spoke of us in the same sentence, and that our thoughts were linked.
I particularly identified with these words of yours: “I had an idyllic childhood. I loved my family (still do, in fact). I had a handful of good friends. I had many of those secure attachments Carter writes about. But it was also a period of time that didn’t ask much of me in terms of resilience. I experienced little in the way of “pain and suffering, disappointment and failure, loss and betrayal.” And so I never really developed the emotional skills to deal with them when they did occur.”
I have often thought about writing a post about a “too happy” childhood. I believe that it is possible to love your children too much…to protect them too much.
Because my very loving parents tried to keep me from experiencing any kind of suffering as a child, I was ill-equipped to handle it later in life.
When it inevitably comes.
My idyllic childhood was probably a determent to my spiritual development…especially in the area of “resilience.”
It seems that some pain…some adversity…is necessary for our growth.
But it is much easier to take it on ourselves than to allow it to come near our children.
My hat’s off to you with two under two.
Surviving that is a full-time job.
“Keep Calm and Carry On.”
blessings…Kim
Thank you, Kim, for visiting Motherese and for taking the time to leave such a thoughtful comment. I too am grateful to Aidan for having linked us in her post so that I had the chance to discover your writing.
As you wrote, it seems infinitely easier to take on pain ourselves rather than to see it visited on our children – after all, haven’t we, with our years of experience, earned some degree of thick skin in order to help us survive crisis? And what parent would willingly inflict a skin-thickening event on her child?
But you’re right, of course: if we offer our children a bubble-wrapped life, we don’t prepare them – or ourselves, really – to send them out into a world of pins and needles.
I like how Becca mentions that too much resilience training feels like a parent who is saying you might as well fail.
When Joely says “listen to their stories no matter how trite” I take note. There have been many important things I’ve discovered from my children because a story began in a boring way.
I am more resilient than tough. I’d like to learn to be one of those people who laughs when I fall. Hanging out with my teenage son is helping in this department. Boys that age are always pulling stunts and falling. Then they just laugh as they get up.
This post is very thought-provoking.
From what little I’ve seen, you are hard on yourself, Kristen. I hear you striving for balance, and yearning to be the best you can be as a mother… I hope you are always gentle with yourself.
I think I am hard on myself, Rebecca, and I suppose it’s connected in a way to my thinking of myself as a “tough” person. Learning how to be gentler with myself would probably not only make me happier, but would also be a very effective way to model resilience for my kids.
Thanks for you thoughts.
I think I’m more resilient than tough, actually. I might look tough, but am not on the inside. Yet I have made a lot of gains in my life despite difficult childhood circumstances.
Love this book and what it makes us think about!
There’s a lot here to think about! First I just want to say that I’m extremely resilient but not at all tough, if that makes any sense. I’ve moved on from severe medical conditions without a complaint, yet could never face down a bully, and could never handle a “mean girl.”
And truly fascinating, Kristen, what you said about trying to recreate your idyllic childhood for your kids. I always feel that I’m trying to do two things: both erase the traumatic components of my childhood (no Holocaust!) and trying to give them the Jewish world I grew up with in Chicago.
That being said, I know I’ve been very good at helping my kids through their personal difiiculties to learn resilience, I’m just not sure that they always see the full process exhibited in me.
As always, Linda, your comment has given me so much to think about. It’s really interesting to me how we’re both conscious of our own childhoods in trying to parent our own kids; I don’t think I had given it much active thought before having the realization that led to this post.
And if you want to share any of your tactics for teaching your kids resilience, I for one would love to hear them! :)
I am blessed to read your post and am blessed that it was on Wordpress. I love the distinction between resilience and toughness – how aptly you’ve described each. I sometimes think having a combination of both is a great place to be mentally and physically. When I am at this point in my life I think resilience got me this far – it’s because I always think of me being in a big world that if one place and person sucks there are a whole of of world and people to immerse my humanity with. I think you can learn to be tough but you are born with resilience – that’s coming from my own life experience.
Once again, thank you for an insightful piece of writing and sharing your wisdom.
Have a great weekend.
Thank you so much, Mari, for your comment and your generous words. I appreciate hearing your perspective and agree that we could all benefit from having a healthy blend of toughness and resilience. I suppose I’ll just have to hope that a combination of safe experience and effort might make me – and my boys – a bit more resilient as we go.
There are no shortcuts. My two sons are in their mid-20s. They both are still climbing the ladders of toughness and resilience.
It’s a process that is best learned by example. Parents may set the standard by which they judge themselves but they will also learn from the company they keep. Trust your instincts.
Great post and my compliments on your good writing.
http://goodbloodbadblood.wordpress.com/
Thank you very much, pmdello, for visiting Motherese and for taking the time to leave a comment.
Your comment makes me reflect on the way that, as with so much in parenting, no matter how much we try to impart wisdom to our kids, most of it will come from their own experience of the world.
This is a great and thought-provoking post. Now that I think about it, I was so tough before I experienced betrayal in my life. When you experience a hardship, you can become tougher (which is actually pretty bitter on the inside), or you can become resilient (which leads to peace). But with this post, I wonder, can resilience be taught by another? Or only learned in life?
Thanks so much, Lisa, for verbalizing a feeling that I share: a tough exterior often cloaks a bitter interior, whereas resilience brings resolution or perhaps even transcendence.
And I hear your question loud and clear: am I on a fool’s errand by trying to teach something that perhaps only experience can?
Thank you for visiting Motherese!
Wow. I popped over in response to your tweet because I want to see you stay on the WP homepage; I didn’t plan on being struck the way this is resonating with me. Life has taught me to be tough. I thought I was resilient too, but now I’m not so sure. I “bounce back” quickly, but often only on the outside. The world might see me pop back up like the clown punching bag, but inside, I’m still on the ground. I don’t have kids yet, but this is something my husband and I talk about a lot – raising them so that they’re not like me in terms of emotional literacy. I want them to be tough, but I want them to bounce back because they have DEALT with their feelings, not swept them under the rug like I tend to do. Thank you for this thought-provoking post!
It’s funny you mention the clown punching bag, Cheryl, because I’ve been wondering if it really is the best example. I too can be that clown, but, like you, I bounce back in appearance rather than because I’ve dealt with my emotions.
Thanks for your comment, Cheryl. It was so nice of you to respond to my tweet with such quick action and such a thoughtful comment! :)
Good post. I’ve always thought myself resilient (ability to bounce back) but not nearly as tough as I’d like. I mean outside I can take it, but inside I might be crumbling. Being a woman and evolving is a complicated process.
“Being a woman and evolving is a complicated process.”
You can say that again!
How insightful. I’d never thought about the difference between resilience & toughness. I grew up in a household that developed a lot of toughness and a little resilience. One of my brother’s is severely handicapped with a lot of behavioral issues and medical problems, and so life was definitely not idyllic. I learned how to be very tough. I didn’t learn as much resilience because in our family, we didn’t show much emotions, especially not the negative ones. It wasn’t really a place where we learned how to deal with those emotions, because we just didn’t talk about them. Ever. As an adult, I think that learning to be gentle toward myself (like you I was always hard on myself, which contributed to my view of myself as TOUGH) has helped me become very resilient. I see in the younger generations a total lack of both toughness & resilience, because they have been emotionally bubble wrapped their whole lives. I’m a little sickened by the changes I’ve seen, as mentioned in previous comments, with things like trophies for every child that participated. The resilience I DID get as a child was largely due to my experiences in athletics and at school, where I learned to deal with disappointment. I think it’s great that you are aware of the need for your kids to develop resilience; they will be better for it :-)
Thanks so much for your comment, Jen – one which made me reflect on some of the lessons in resilience that I too learned from playing sports as a kid into my teenage years. I wouldn’t have thought about learning to deal with winning and losing and making and missing baskets as lessons in resilience, but they absolutely were. You’ve made me think about how those athletic experiences contributed to both my toughness and the modicum of resilience that I do have – and about how the newer approach to team sports might be sheltering kids from important and gentle life lessons.
I had no idea I was trying to teach my girls to be “tough” until reading your thoughtful example. Resilience. What a beautiful and generally unappreciated word. I can’t remember the last time I’ve even considered it. Thank you, Kristen. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
Yes! Yes! The distinction means everything. Thank you for putting that into words, Kristen. How I understand toughness, but resilience? I need it and want it for myself so that I can teach my future children so they will be able to cope with the disappointments and fears and other hurts that they will inevitably have to know. I guess my greatest fear is that they’ll wind up as brittle as I have been of late. I don’t want that to happen if I can help it.
Great points all around. To me it’s ironic that we have a world so crazy and split (i.e. cruelty on the street and, where possible, total protection in the gated and alarmed home) that there needs to be self-conscious coaching about resilience as opposed to natural modeling by the world around a child (i.e. uncle Joe was maimed by the Mammoth, he does what he can around the cave). But, alas, for now we do indeed need to re-discover and transmit this forgotten wisdom.
I think of a line in a Woody Allen film: “The heart is a resilient little muscle.”
Tough and resilient come into play a lot. Especially going back to school I can only imagine what it must be like with children.
Thanks for visiting Motherese, Andrea! I agree totally: regardless of where we are in life – whether we’re in school, taking care of kids, both, or neither – we need these coping skills.
Hi Kristen!
I’m off to reserve Raising Happiness from the library right now! Sounds like a good one. : )
Tasha
I’m new to this site, and I’m enjoying reading this, all the comments as well. It hits a tender spot as this past month I, (who would like nothing more than happy moments for my kids) have had to navigate through two family funerals and the times just before and after, which was stressfull and difficult.
With my 20 month old it led to a lot of extra cuddling and singing time. With my 3 year old – it was really hard, quality time and hopeful talking helped. With my six year old boy, he turned sober and wise overnight and we sat and counseled together through it all. I feel most satisfied with the growth experience this was for my oldest and still worry for my three year old.
A great blog, it’s given me a lot to think deeply about. I look forward to reading more and checking out my own copy of Raising Happiness at the library.
Thank you so much for visiting Motherese, Heidi. I am sorry to hear of the losses in your family and the challenges they presented to you as a parent. It’s one thing to wish for opportunities for our kids to gain resilience; it’s another thing entirely to have to actually deal with those situations, isn’t it? Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Hope to see you again.
Tough vs resilient…so interesting.
A friend of mine thought it was cruel of me to let my 8YO daughter (who is a lover of dogs) watch the movie Marley and Me. (Spoiler…if you haven’t seen it, the dog dies at the end.) My friend felt it was too sad for my daughter and that she would become unnecessarily upset. I, on the other hand, felt it was good for my daughter to know that sad things do happen in life, but that it will be OK. She was upset at the end and cried quite a bit, but we spent time talking about our own dog and how much we love him and how much we appreciate him while he is here with us now.
After all was said and done, I’m not sure if I made the best decision. I either helped her with a life lesson or traumatized her for life….I’ll let you know in 10 years or so…
It’s so interesting that you mention that movie because I saw it and was surprised by how much I liked it. I expected it to be a corny romantic comedy (which would have been okay too), but I thought the whole story was incredibly realistic. Strip away Jen and Owen’s tans and you have a pretty accurate portrayal of marriage and family life: infertility, squabbling, post-partum depression, and, yes, a dog who grows old and then dies.
I doubt that your daughter will be in therapy ten years from now discussing her memories of that movie. If anything, I think you might have paved the way for her when she inevitably experiences some loss in her life. Here’s hoping her life can remain decidedly loss-free for as long as possible!
Toughness is so much easier than resilience. However, I think it is very important to have both when raising two young children. i don’t have any children at the moment, but when I do get that wonderful opportunity I will surely take Gottman’s advice
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