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Parents should let their children experience tough situations instead of jumping in to help them so that those youths can develop psychological resiliency for the future, an educational researcher says.
“There are seasons and times and scenarios when kids need recusing and when they need us to swoop in and help them in a big way. Most often, they need us to be supporters to teach them the skills or make sense of what’s going on. They need us in their corners as guides or shepherds to steer them,” said Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe.
Famous athletes experienced difficulties that helped them develop resiliency, she continued. For example, NBA star Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team while football star Tom Brady went 199th in the NFL draft.
“He (Brady) ended up doing OK for himself,” Hanley-Dafoe chuckled. “I share examples of athletes who have been cut or lost their spot on the team and how that experience really improved their training, their discipline, their performance, and they came back stronger after that setback.”
If parents always race to their children’s rescue to prevent bad things from happening, then youths will not learn skills to figure out situations, she continued. As a university professor, she regularly sees first-year youths experience major disappointment or mixed emotions since they haven’t learned to problem-solve.
Seeing parents as supporters instead of rescuers was part of a talk Hanley-Dafoe gave recently to Moose Jaw teachers and parents about building resiliency in children and teens. She also offered best practices to help adults parent wisely based on results from her clinic and her household with three teens.
Children need adults who are present over adults who attempt to be perfect, she pointed out. Sometimes adults fixate on wanting to have their life together and meet every need of their children. However, kids often just want parents to sit with them and hear how their day went. Teens don’t want their parents’ input or suggested resolutions, only that they listen.
“What counts is when we show up, we put the devices down, the phones down, we plug in and ask how their day is … ,” said Hanley-Dafoe. “They just want you to be there. That’s what matters at the end of the day.”
There are strategies to help youths — and adults too — feel grounded, calm and steady, including quieting the nervous system using deep breathing techniques, she continued.
Instead of telling children to calm down — which rarely works and produces the opposite reaction — parents should practice “birthday cake breathing.” Hanley-Dafoe has used this technique with Olympic athletes, top performers, astronauts and toddlers and had great success.
This breathing technique includes imagining a birthday cake and then taking a deep, four-second breath in and exhaling over four seconds as if blowing out candles.
“Now, why is that strategy so effective? By holding that image in your mind’s eye, you are quieting the mental chatter. That breathing sends the cue to the brain that you are safe,” said Hanley-Dafoe. “Little ones love that practice.”
Hanley-Dafoe also suggested that if kids and teens use social media regularly, they should follow positive influencers with uplifting messages and values to help build their mental health. They should also take time away from their devices to detox — even for a couple of hours.
