COPING SKILLS
Children must be taught to stick up for themselves
TORONTO — When Julianne Harvey learned her first-grader was being picked on last year, her instinct was to race in and fix the problem. But advice from her mother-in-law, a longtime elementary school teacher, gave the author and mother of two a fresh perspective.
“She told me, ‘Your job is to teach him to stand up for himself. You’re not always going to be there to manage things for him, so you need to give him those skills,’ ” Harvey said from Crossfield, Alta.
“That advice was really lifechanging for me, and helped me see my kids as needing these skills to survive. And my job as a parent … is to take a dependent child and turn them into an independent adult. And I think we’ve lost the plot on that as a culture.”
Protecting youngsters from hurdles in their life’s path safeguards them from potentially hurt feelings in the short-term. But could efforts by well intentioned adults to spare kids from disappointment create larger problems down the road?
A Calgary school made headlines recently by deciding to eliminate academic awards to preserve the self-esteem of kids who don’t make the cut — a move which rankled some parents and students. In Texas, a high school football team that won 91-0 saw a bullying complaint filed by a parent of the losing team (recently cleared following an investigation).
Neuropsychologist Sam Goldstein, co-author of Raising Resilient Children, said individuals don’t learn to deal with adversity “by sitting at the side of the pool,” but by being given the support to try to learn from their mistakes.
“Resiliency is a process that enables you to function well in the face of adversity,” he said from Salt Lake City. “The data’s pretty clear that if parents would like their children to be more capable of managing stress, then we have to stress-inoculate them — even from young ages.”
Children aren’t usually taught resiliency unless they’re going to be exposed to a really stressful situation, said David Wolfe, director of the CAMH Centre for Prevention Science in London, Ont.
“We’re trying to teach them normal coping methods, and the confusion that comes about with parents — whether it’s overblown or not — is: ‘Somehow my kid’s going to fail, they’re not going to cope well, they’re going to collapse, they’re going to have a disorder.’ And the fear is probably more the parent’s than the kid’s,” said Wolfe, who specializes in issues affecting children and youth.
“A little bit of stress is good. This is an axiom that’s been around for a long, long time,” he added. “Without stress, a person doesn’t learn to cope and they can’t live on their own, they can’t live independently. They expect everything to happen the way they want it. The balance is between too much stress and enough stress.”
Harvey, mother to Ava, 10, and William, 7, is candid in blog posts on her website, emphasizing the importance of instilling confidence in children and the value in managing disappointment.
She works toward putting her words into action as she aims to equip her kids with the skills she believes they need to be emotionally resilient. Harvey has used role-playing to encourage discussion about challenges, such as a person being mean at school.
“I practise being my daughter and she practises being the other person,” Harvey said. “It helps her build empathy because she puts herself in the person’s shoes, and then she also gets the chance to practise what she could have said: ‘That hurts my feelings.’ Just teaching some of these skills around how to stand up for yourself, but to do it kindly.”
Wolfe said “teachable moments” can often be used to help kids cope with stress, most notably during transition periods.
“The first time they go into school or a camp is a transition time where you’re able to pick up on normal feelings of anxiety they’re having and say, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be a new experience for you. You’re going to try it out. Let me know how it goes. It won’t always be easy,’ in simple language,” he said. “If they have to move, if there’s any big change in their life, that’s another time to help them identify what it’s like to try to learn to cope and let them know you’re there to assist with that as much as possible.”
If a child is reluctant to share information, ask how their friends are faring and if they’re experiencing any stress, Wolfe suggests.
In shielding children from realizing they’re not the best or smartest in a particular area, Goldstein believes adults create more obstacles than benefits for kids.
Daily interactions between parents and children — and the mindsets of adults — help foster resilience in kids, he said.
“Make sure they feel special and appreciated for who they are, not what they do, and accept them for who they are, not what you want them to be,” said Goldstein.
“Help them each find an island of competence, something they do well that gives them a sense of identity, whatever it is. Help them appreciate and understand that mistakes are opportunities from which to learn.”