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In today's episode, I'm delving into the topic of building resilience and recuperation in our children.
Recent years have taught us how quickly life can change, bringing disappointments and challenges. Many families have faced significant hardships, from losing loved ones to undergoing financial upheavals. But here's a crucial question: Are our kids equipped to handle these disappointments?
In our effort to smooth out every bump for them, have we inadvertently left them unprepared for life's inevitable setbacks?
I believe that shielding children from every hurt and disappointment does more harm than good. The ability to handle life's troubles, be it breakups, not making a team, or job rejections, develops through experience.
So, how do we ensure our children are developing this vital resilience? Find out in this week's episode.
Meet Jennifer Kolari
Jennifer Kolari is the host of the “Connected Parenting” weekly podcast and the co-host of “The Mental Health Comedy” podcast. Kolari is a frequent guest on Nationwide morning shows and podcasts in th US and Canada. Her advice can also be found in many Canadian and US magazines such as; Today’s Parent, Parents Magazine and Canadian Family.
Kolari’s powerful parenting model is based on the neurobiology of love, teaching parents how to use compassion and empathy as powerful medicine to transform challenging behavior and build children’s emotional resilience and emotional shock absorbers.
Jennifer’s wisdom, quick wit and down to earth style help parents navigate modern-day parenting problems, offering real-life exampes as well as practical and effective tools and strategies.
Her highly entertaining, inspiring workshops are shared with warmth and humour, making her a crowd-pleasing speaker with schools, medical professionals, corporations and agencies throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
One of the nation’s leading parenting experts, Jennifer Kolari, is a highly sought- after international speaker and the founder of Connected Parenting. A child and family therapist with a busy practice based in San Diego and Toronto, Kolari is also the author of Connected Parenting: How to Raise A Great Kid (Penguin Group USA and Penguin Canada, 2009) and You’re Ruining My Life! (But Not Really): Surviving the Teenage Years with Connected Parenting (Penguin Canada, 2011).
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Jennifer Kolari: Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode
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of connected parenting. So today I wanted to talk about something
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really important. And this is sort of a foundation to building
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resilience in your kids and, and recuperation. And if we've
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learned anything in 2020, it's that things can change really
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fast. Disappointments can happen for some kids and families have
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been huge disappointments, really big things happening. You
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know, tragically losing family members, financial, big
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financial changes. And for a lot of families, there's just been
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regular kind of disappointments and for our kids, because we've
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tended to raise them by making everything as easy as possible
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for them. We've tried to smooth out every bump in the road. They
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are not particularly equipped this generation to handle this
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appointment, and there's been a lot of it and there will be
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more. And life is like that. I say this all the time that you
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can't you, if you try to protect your child from every
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disappointment and every hurt, all you're doing is giving them
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a disadvantage. So the neurological hardware that needs
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to develop in order to handle disappointments, trouble
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breakups, not making a team not getting the job. That that
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hardware comes from experience. It comes from losing something,
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learning something, losing something again, and learning
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something and if we rob our children of those experiences,
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then they're not going to have the neurological equipment to
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handle trouble when it comes. And trouble always comes. Hi,
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everyone. I'm Jennifer Clary. I'm a child and family therapist
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and a parenting coach and the founder of connected parenting.
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And welcome to the connected parenting weekly podcast. Join
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me every week. And we'll tackle everything from temper tantrums
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to bedtime to sibling issues to teenage angst, parenting can be
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so wonderful, but it can be so hard. Parents often say to me,
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Hey, can you just come live at my house, this is the next best
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thing. Let's do this together. So let's talk about how to help
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your kids deal with disappointment. So the first
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thing I want to talk about is the importance of
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disappointment. Healthy adversity is actually critical
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to good mental health. The brain organizes itself in polarity. A
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bad thing means a good thing is better. And a good thing means a
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bad thing is worse, and it just goes back and forth. And as you
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deal with that polarity, because everything in life has an equal
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and opposite. You help your children learn that contrast. So
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disappointment, hurt feelings, going through something really
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hard. Or be the things that really help you do have your
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character and the sense of who you are later on in life. So as
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difficult as it is for us as parents to watch our children
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struggle, and to watch them suffer. In those moments, there
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is growth, there is learning, there is an opportunity to see
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how strong they are to learn how to recover, to learn that things
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can seem really difficult and really impossible. And that can
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be okay. But if we've jumped in and rescued them every single
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time and fixed it or bought them something or called that teacher
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or got them invited to that thing, or got them on that team
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they shouldn't be on. We're robbing them, we're robbing them
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of the learning that can come from more negative experiences.
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History is the greatest teacher you will ever have. Right? So
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learning from those those difficult experiences really is
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critical to mental health. Those contrast those contours in life
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are essential, because it's those things that actually help
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us really appreciate when things go well, when things feel good,
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when things are pleasant, and things are positive and you
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cannot have one without the other. Now I've given this
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example before. But imagine you had a little eight year old girl
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and you have fixed every problem she's ever had. You can't stand
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her looking upset, you can't stand her suffering. So every
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time that she is sad, you rush in and you buy her something or
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you have a different birthday party or you find something else
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to distract her and make her feel better. She's learning two
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things one, pain is intolerable. Sadness is intolerable. It's an
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emotion that is really painful. It's so bad that my parents
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won't even let me experience it. And my parents can't even
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tolerate my sadness. So it must be really, really bad. So
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there's sort of this doubling down of what happens in these
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negative experiences. Now imagine that you take that
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little girl to go and get an ice cream cone and she's eating her
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ice cream and plops onto the floor. Now that child is going
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to start crying and screaming she will be shrieking and
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devastated. Why? Because the ice cream falling on the floor is
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actually one of the worst things that's ever happened to her.
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Because every other part of her life has been so carefully
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programmed and cushioned. All we've done is shifted, she's
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going to experience the pain anyway. But now she's going to
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experience it over smaller and smaller things, because the
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brain is constantly looking for that balance, and that polarity.
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So the first thing you want to be able to do is use the contact
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niq. So go back to the earlier podcasts, and, and listen to all
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of those, it's really important because it's how you listen and
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hold space, and sit with your child, or your mother in law or
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your spouse, or your best friend. It's not just for kids,
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when they struggle, it's it's being present with them in that
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painful moment, not talking them out of it, not cheerleading them
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out of it, not distracting them out of it. But being present,
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and truly listening with your heart in that moment. That's the
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greatest thing you can do for your child. So we'll come back
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to it exactly example in a moment, but you're present with
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them in that moment, you're using the Contact meek, two or
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three statements to release that oxytocin to help your child feel
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like you've heard them, it is not happening to you, you are
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not devastated, you know that it is happening to them, You are
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grounded and neutral. And then you do your absolute best not to
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rescue, not to fix the situation, if there's a learning
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lesson in there, your child needs to experience that lesson,
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the best example I could give you is let's say your child
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procrastinated horribly on a project. And it's too late, they
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can't do it anymore. It's too late. Instead of doing it for
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them, or doing it with them, at 10 o'clock at night, you mirror
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first, which looks like you know what, this is a horrible feeling
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you really did believe you were gonna get this done you
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everything in you thought you were going to be able to finish
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this, and then it was going to be okay. But it's taken so much
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longer than you thought it was going to take. And that's a
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really scary feeling. You're right in there. Now you're not
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panicking, you're not gonna You really thought this was gonna
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work. And now it can't your own emotions can't be in there you
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must be parenting from a place of love, not fear. It's
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happening to her, or to him in you are sharing that back, you
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are reflecting that back through empathy, and compassion in the
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realm of neutrality. And then you say my darling, I love you
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enough. To help you learn this lesson. You need to learn what
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happens when you don't do your homework when you leave
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something the last minute, and if I jump in and rescue you, and
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if we do this together, your brain is going to remember that
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it worked. And it turned out, okay. And in this case, I don't
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want your brain to know that it's okay. Because it's not
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okay. It's going to keep piling up. And it's going to be
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something that you keep doing. So I want you to learn this
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lesson. Now. I'm not going to help you, I'm tired. It's 10
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o'clock at night, I've worked all day. Either do it yourself
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or don't do it. But you need to figure out what happens when you
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make a choice like this. And again, it must be in that
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beautiful neutral tone of
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Unknown: Canva you have left at the last minute. Now you got to
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figure out what happens. It's up to you to find out, you got
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yourself in this mess, it
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Jennifer Kolari: can't have that energy. Because it's all about
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fear. Right? That's all about angst. And it's all about fear.
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And that's not the right energy, then they just walk away
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thinking you didn't help me, you're so mean, you don't care
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what happens to me. And that becomes the context that you're
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communicating. It must come from a place of love, I love you
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enough not to buy you that. I love you enough not to do that
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homework for you. I love you enough not to call and make this
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right. Because as hard as this is you need to learn voices, and
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that when you make choices, there will be consequences. This
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is so critical. Because if you if you don't teach them this
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life will. And then you'll have a child in their late 20s, early
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20s late teens who does not have to handle all kinds of things
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that life is going to throw at you. And when you have little
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kids, you actually do have some control over their lives. You
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can give them a timeout, you can take their computer away, you
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can go in and talk to the teacher. When they're older. You
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can't do anything but watch. They are they have sovereignty,
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they have independence, they will make their own choices and
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all you can do is stand back and hope that you have taught them
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enough and love them enough so that they can make really good
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choices and or learn from their negative choices. What you can
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do is constantly remind your child, I believe in you. I see
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what you're capable of. I know what you're capable of. I'm
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excited to watch this unfold. I'm excited for you to see you
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become the person I know you are getting them to line up with
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Aaron Integrity, are you in your integrity? Are you out of your
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integrity, when you're out of your integrity, you know, you
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did a bunch of things first and goofed around and watch a bunch
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of shows and, and ignored what you needed to do. And now that
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project is due, and now you're in big trouble. But the reason
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you're upset is because you know that you're out of your
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integrity. That's how you guide your child. That's how you love
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your child into becoming the incredible human being that
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they're meant to become. Now another technique that is really
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important. So this is more for little kids. But it's really
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important because it prepares kids for later in life when big
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hurts and little hurts become different things, but having a
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conversation with your child about what is a big hurt, and
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what is a little hurt. So you talk about a big hurt first, and
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don't make up something terrifying work work with your
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child, but if it's something that they can really identify
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with, so if they've lost a grandparent, if they've had an
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experience or life that has been a really big hurt, you can use
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that as an anchor point. If they haven't, then and sort of find
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the something in their in their life, that was a really big
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thing that they had a really hard time with, and use that as
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a definition of a big heart. And then you talk about a little
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hurt, well, a little hurt was my show wasn't on that I thought
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was gonna be on or I thought we were going to be able to go for
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a walk and we can't right now like, we just sort of find that
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scale with them. And then there would be a medium part. So if
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they're a little, I don't know, maybe that would be leaving
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their favorite teddy bear on the subway or a bus or something or
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losing something that really matters to them, you know, not
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getting invited to something, you know, that's a friend that
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isn't really a close friend, something like that, that would
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be a medium hurt. And then constantly working that out with
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them so that when they're in a moment of upset, you can help
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them scale it. So your body feels like this is a really big
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hurt. But is it a little hurt? Or is it a medium hurt, they
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will always tell you in the moment, it's at the heart while
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we say that. But as you're kind of working that out with them,
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they're doing the job of that you're helping them you're
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assisting them in the job that the frontal lobe does, which is
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to try and take perspective right in some of this can be
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done afterwards. So there will be moments where doing this in
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the middle is just not going to work there. And they're so upset
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they're in such as fight or flight state that they're
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hysterical. In that moment, you try three to four statements of
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mirroring. Really being present with them, not talking them out
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of it, not sure leading them out of it, maintaining your own
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sense of neutrality, tell yourself in that moment, my
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child is in pain, think to yourself, my child is in pain,
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but they're going to be okay. They've been in pain many times
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before over many things. And in an hour from now they're going
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to be okay or tomorrow they're going to be okay. Really used to
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love to adjust where they are in this moment, trusting your child
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that this is part of life and they will get through it, they
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will be okay. Acknowledging that you're in pain as well watching
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them just resonating with that feeling, letting it sink in a
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little bit, don't fight it, then you can kind of release it and
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trust that your child will be okay. And there'll be some
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learning here and some guiding here. You can do all of this
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with your child after the event. So maybe a couple of hours
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later, hey, let's go back and think about what happened this
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morning you thought you know so and so was going to come over
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and they didn't mirror first totally crummy. You had all
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these plans. I saw you were so excited last night, you knew
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exactly what we wanted to do with your friend. It's so hard
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when things don't happen. It feels so awful in your body,
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just really being present. Letting them feel that. And then
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you can reflect and say but you know what I was thinking about
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it. And where does that fall on the scale of big heart to little
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I know, it felt like a big hurt. It really, really did. But part
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of learning to grow up and partying part of learning how to
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run this amazing brain that you have, and deal with all your
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feelings so that you can control them, instead of them
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controlling you is figuring out maybe that was a medium part.
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And helping them actually scale their response. Well, that's
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interesting, because it looked like he had, you know, a big
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hurt response to a little hurt and what can we do, and it's
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really helping them look at these situations from a
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different perspective. Now, as always, with connected
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parenting, you also want to be doing this with yourself. So we
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often have especially if you're an empathic, super sensitive
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parent, it's going to gut you, when your child is upset, your
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body is going to have a big hurt response to it. So first you
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have to ground yourself you have to acknowledge that feeling. You
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have to literally use the contact niq on yourself. I love
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my child so much. I do so much for them. I try in every way
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possible to make sure that they're having a good life and
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they're happy and to watch them this devastated just so hard.
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It's so hurtful. Be really compassionate with yourself. You
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love your child very, very match, which is why you feel it
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in such a big way when they're hurting. After you resonate with
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that, after you allow yourself to feel that feeling, sit with
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it a little bit, let it flow through, you take a breath, and
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then say, okay, now I have to move into frontal lobe mode, my
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own frontal lobe, and I also have to be the substitute
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frontal lobe for my child. Now I need to go back, I need to keep
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in my mind, a very strong sense that my child will be fine, that
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this is part of learning that there is incredible value in
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contrast, and contours, they are essential for growth, they're
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essential for mental health, there are all these little bumps
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that my child needs to have when they're little, in order to be
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protective, in order for them to have the hardware that they need
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to handle big bumps later real bumps that Mommy and Daddy can't
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fix. Having faith in your child, having belief in your child that
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they will get through it. It is very hard. And as we move
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through life right now, where there's all kinds of change,
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there's so much anxiety. There's a lot of disappointment. A lot
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of things that were supposed to happen aren't happening right
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now. We're feeling very fragile, and worried ourselves. But it's
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really important to understand that emotions are information,
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they are not to be feared. They are not to you, you're not to
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run away from them, their information, you register them,
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you read them, you feel them, you resonate with them, and then
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you release them. And then you teach your child to do the same.
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This is the greatest gift honestly that you can give your
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child giving them the gift of emotional resilience, giving
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them those emotional shock absorbers that they're going to
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need to handle life. There is nothing greater that you can
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give your child why
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Unknown: I'm Barry Clary from connected parenting. I hope you
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enjoyed our podcast. And don't forget to check us out on the
00:16:54
web at connected parenting.com and like us and follow us on
00:16:58