Educate resilience: ideas to improve ourselves

When we have children, we want them to be happy, to know how to overcome the obstacles of life and hopefully not to face any traumatic event or significant suffering. Many times, parents concentrate so much on this that we become overprotective parents who, for fear of our children suffering, try to always be close by removing each obstacle and removing any threat.

In the upbringing of our children it is important teach them how to overcome and to understand that suffering is part of life and that we can transform it into something that changes us and makes us better. This is resilience.

The resilience it is defined as the ability of a person to recover from adversity to continue projecting the future. Educate resilience It is a very important resource because no matter how hard we try to avoid problems or suffering, the reality is that our children will find them on the road, so you have to equip your backpack with all the necessary resources to overcome them.


Facing failures, key to educate resilience

Children who have not faced any failure in their life, will have very difficult to overcome any problem in their adult life. It is very simple: if we cover or minimize frustrations, discomforts or small failures, our children will not have the opportunity to come face to face with this obstacle and will not have the opportunity to overcome it.

Well says the saying: "you have to grow up with a little bit of hunger and a bit of thirst". These small drawbacks: knowing how to wait to get home to drink water, not complaining if it is very hot, or experiencing some discomfort, will help them develop tolerance to frustration, a necessary tool to overcome the problems of everyday life.


Perseverance, essential to overcome adversities

Another necessary tool for the backpack of resilience is perseverance. Our children must be able to have enough tenacity to work to achieve their goals, even if they look very far away, or even if they involve a lot of work.

We live in the time of instant gratification: what is not achieved immediately is not worth it. We must fight against this culture that denies the value of prolonged effort, which does not recognize the importance of the day-to-day struggle that makes our children surrender to the first attempt.

Let's encourage our children to try it one more time. It does not matter that at the first or second attempt they have not achieved what they wanted. Success stories are full of many attempts, many falls and many "clear" failures A phrase full of wisdom that is often heard is: "No matter how you fall, the important thing is how you get up."


Assuming the consequences of actions makes us resilient

Many times we try to avoid our children taking the consequences of their actions to avoid a bad time: we take them a job they left in the house, we replace the ball they lost in the park, etc. When we do this, we rob them of the experience of facing the consequences of their actions and of learning from them.

Children who have grown up in an environment "without consequences" are unable to understand or assume responsibilities when they are adults. This confusion makes them paralyzed at the moment of overcoming a problem, because they do not understand why they should assume that consequence, if they have never done it before.

Assume the cconsequences of one's actions it is an important step to become resilient: only if we know what we are facing, can we learn how to assume it and how to overcome it to move forward. Remember this when we go to "save" a consequence to our children.

Knowing how to count on others

One of the most important factors in resilience is having someone's support. Be the family, a great teacher, or a good friend, the resilient people find in the other, that sense of belonging, that unconditional support that is necessary to face the difficulties and overcome them.

To develop this support network, it is necessary that the person knows how to open up to others, that he knows how to recognize that there is something that others give him that he would not achieve alone. He has to learn to give himself: a open your heart and go out to meet the other. We must instill in them the value of true friendship, that which is generous and sincere and which seeks good for the friend at all times.

Finally, our children should know that they can always count on us. Our love should make them feel safe and they should know that if they make a mistake a thousand times, we will always be there to support them and help them get up. Because that's what family is for, it's the best place to grow and to face everything life puts before us.

Maria Veronica Degwitz

Video: 3 tips to boost your confidence - TED-Ed


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