Exploring the Social World with Jaime Rivetts
Listen to this episode of The Sensory Project show with Rachel and Jessica where I talk more about what I do and how I can help you with your child! Enjoy!
Resilience - The Art of Overcoming
by Jaime Rivetts
Resilience has become a new buzz word in the world of working with and raising children. I often hear other therapists, parents or educators say: “We need to raise more resilient children, the world is changing” or “Resilient people are more successful and therefore happier people.” But what does all this really mean? What does being resilient mean and why is it important if we are educating or parenting children and teens?
The best way to describe resilience is the following: “the capacity to bounce back, to withstand hardship, and to repair yourself” (Wolin and Wolin, 1993) through difficult times in life. We can’t control the difficult times that children are going to face.e can do our best to shelter them from the storm, but, eventually, that storm will come. As we get older and mature, we start to realize that bad things do happen in the world, and it’s not if they happen but rather it’s how we deal with what happens that matters. Sometimes our choices can cause more storms. That’s the part we do have control over. To me, that is part of being resilient.
I realize now that I have been teaching children, teens and young adults how to become more resilient for the past 15 years, but I just didn’t call it by that name. I was teaching them how to deal with stress, how to problem solve, and how to resolve personal conflict, all of which directly tie into becoming more resilient. However, there is a huge factor to consider. Some people come hardwired a certain way, i.e. some children come already predisposed to being more resilient. Some children have a much harder time with it and need a lot more support than others. I am not sure why that is outside of genetics, but that doesn’t mean as a parent or educator that you can’t help them learn resilience. Becoming more resilient is definitely a TEACHABLE SKILL.
So here is the BIG question - How do we teach resilience? I think it would be easier if I gave you an example of how I recently helped a student become more resilient after the death of her father. She is 22 years old and asked me to teach her how to get through the grief and hardship after his death. (If we had not already been working together for years, I would normally refer her to a counselor that specializes in this area.)
Tip#1: Rewire the brain
This can start at any age, but the older we are, the more experiences we have had, and therefore the more our neural pathways of the brain have become engrained. Luckily this was the first major death my client had experienced so we didn’t have years of rewiring to do.
Now do me a favor and try this activity as you are reading. Cross your arms. Don’t think about what you are doing; just do it. Do you notice if one arm is on top more than the other? Now switch arms and do it the opposite way. How did that feel? Uncomfortable? Do you have to think about it more to put the other arm on top? If you don’t notice, try switching hands while you write your name. Usually when we do something new for the first time it’s UNCOMFORTABLE until it becomes comfortable.
The goal of rewiring your brain is to get comfortable doing the uncomfortable. Change your routine. Step outside your comfort zone. Do something a different way. When I did this with my student dealing with the death of her father I told her that her life had now drastically changed so much so that she had to cross her arms the opposite way ALL THE TIME. Her life was going to feel uncomfortable and maybe even awful, but after time it would become more comfortable. The best thing we can teach children is to be COMFORTABLE WITH THE UNCOMFORTABLE.
Tip # 2: Let go of your old story
My client kept telling herself that she wasn’t sure how she was going to get on with her life without her dad alive. At one point she considered giving up completely and thought her life had no meaning. She tells herself that she isn’t sure what to do now that he is gone. That’s the story she is telling herself, and therefore, she is living it. I had her write her “story” down on a piece of paper. We talked at length about how it made her feel, and then I had her tear it up and throw it in the garbage.
What story are you telling yourself that needs to be thrown away? You are a bad mom. You can’t get all the things done that you want to in a day. You hate your job. I’ve been there and told myself the same type of stories. That didn’t help me. Let go of the stories that aren’t serving you and recreate new ones that are going to serve you in the way you want to live. My 3-year-old daughter is learning how to ski for the first time, and I hear her say things like “ I can’t do it, Mom!” I don’t want that to become her story around skiing, so I tell her “ I know it’s hard, but let’s give it a try anyway, and I know it will be fun.”
Tip # 3: Rewire your brain to tell yourself a new story that is full of hope
This is where we have to teach kids how to be flexible. We have to be willing to change our thoughts in order to become more unstuck. Sometimes getting kids or even adults to become unstuck can require a lot of time and effort. Adapting and changing is the key to overcoming. With my client that is grieving the loss of her father, we came up with a new story and made it her everyday mantra. Anytime her old story creeps up in her head, her job is to repeat the new mantra over and over again. Eventually, the old story will go away and the new story will become the new normal.
Her new story looks a little something like this “ I can’t bring my father back or change the fact that he died. I can go on with my life, although it will always be different, and still find happiness. My life has meaning and he would want that for me.” It’s going to take some time and a lot of guidance from family and myself to get her through this, but I know this is what her father would want for her.
We can raise and teach our children to adapt, grow, and tolerate the storms life throws our way.
“On the other side of a storm is the strength that comes from having navigated through it. Raise your sail and begin.”
― Gregory S. Williams
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