everyday resilience: fostering our children’s grit ...€¦ · “failure is always an option”...
TRANSCRIPT
Everyday Resilience: Fostering
our Children’s Grit,
Perseverance, and Coping Skills
By Dr. Rebecca Resnik
Licensed Psychologist
Director, Mindwell Psychology Bethesda P.C.
Our plan . . .
� Neurobiology of resilience
� Psychology of resilience
� External/Internal factors influencing resilience
� Coping with adversity
� Teaching kids to persevere
Resilience: The ability to cope adaptively
with adversity and stress
“That which does not kill us makes us
stronger”--Nietzsche
Oh, really?
“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says
differently is selling something.”--Westley
Who is resilient and why?
It’s Complicated . . . (Russo, et al., 2012)
The Brain’s First Alarm System: The
Amygdala (“bottom up”)
The brain is an “anticipation machine”– Daniel Dennett, 1991
The Second Stage of Alarm: Distress
Maintenance (“Top Down”)
The frontal lobe as CEO (Michio Kaku, 2014)
What makes kids vulnerable?
� Rigid coping strategies
� Maladaptive coping strategies
� The number of stressors, not the severity
� Anxiety and depression in the family
� Learning and attentional disabilities
� Bullying, rejection, and exclusion
� Social isolation
� Conflict and chaos in the home
Extrinsic Factors: Those outside of the
child that foster resilience
� Secure attachment to caregiver
� Predictability in the home
� Parenting style
� Play and fun—engagement
with others
� Having at least 1 friend
Having your parents be absolutely crazy
about you!
Intrinsic Factors: Maladaptive Coping
Strategies
� Provide short-term relief at long term cost
� Are unhealthy
� Are rigid, do not allow the
child to be adaptable
� Create new problems or
make old problems worse
� Avoid dealing with the
problem
Intrinsic Factors that make kids strong
� Self-Efficacy
� Mindfulness/Insight
� Temperament
� Flexibility
� Finding meaning in setbacks
Be the change you want to see in . . . your
child!
� “Every breath you take, every move you make . . .”
� Kids will do what you do
� Teens will detect hypocrisy
� Watch your own self-talk
� Practice self-care
Chaim Ginott on Parenting (or Teaching)
� “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
Psychology of Resilience:
� Reactions to emotional distress� Physical
� Emotional
� Cognitive
� How do we interpret what we experience?
Our interpretation is powerful
Distress maintenance: Cognitive
Distortions
� All or nothing thinking
� “I feel it, therefore it must be so”
� Catastrophizing
� Focusing on the bad
� One time means forever
� Overpersonalizing
� Mindreading
Bouncing Back: learning to bend not break
Letting Go: Overcoming challenges is
critical to developing self-efficacy
Developing self-efficacy
� Give choices whenever possible
� Allow kids to make their own plans
� Allow kids to invent solutions
� Give the same level of freedoms that are the norm in your neighborhood (Wendy Mogel)
� CHORES
� Give kids responsibilities
� Let them experience Natural Consequences
Our failures give us information—it is
called experience
� “Failure is always an option” --Adam Savage
Coping with failures and mistakes
� Validate the feelings
� Listen, don’t talk
� Help problem solved (if asked)
� Guide the child towards
finding his own
solutions
� Help the child make
retribution
Think like a coach, not a mechanic
� Give kids as much choice as possible for how to get things done
� Help them find their own solutions (e.g. Ross Greene, The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach)
� Encourage them to take risks
� State what you observe, then ask “What’s your plan?”
� Help them break down goals into steps
� Help them reflect after a setback
Fostering “Grit”—Dr. Angela Duckworth
� “Grit” = Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals
� Self discipline (not just resilience)
� In Duckworth’s research, grit
accounts for more variance than IQ
and talent
The “Growth” vs “Fixed” Mindset
--Dr. Carol Dweck
� "In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it."
Fostering Self-Efficacy: How to praise
“Person vs Process” Praise (Kamins and Dweck, 1999)
� “Process” Praise or Criticism:� “This essay has five paragraphs! Nice!”
� “I see some mistakes that need fixing”
� “Person” Praise or Criticism:� “You are so smart!”
� “You are a sloppy writer”
Desirable Praise (Haim Ginott, 1965)
� Describes efforts and accomplishments� “The whole yard is raked and it is not even noon!”
� “You are getting more of them right now, aren’t you?”
� “You are really sticking with this assignment!”
� “I see a lot of progress here, what do you think?”
� “Now, that is really independence/determination/perseverance/hard work/responsibility/sticking with it”
Ginott likens praise to a potent medication— it is not be used “haphazardly”
Finding meaning in your own story
“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.” ---JK Rowling
Telling your story
� Be the repository of your child’s finest moments (Faber and Mazlish)
� Find a sense of purpose
� What have we
learned?
� Make it art
Finding Meaning in the journey� “The people who succeed despite depression do
three things. First, they seek an understanding of what's happening. Then they accept that this is a permanent situation. And then they have to transcend their experience and grow from it and put themselves out into the world of real people.” --Andrew Solomon
Remember, YOU are your child’s primary
mental health care provider
Don’t be afraid to get help
That’s it!
� Thanks for listening� Dr. Rebecca Resnik, Licensed Psychologist
Director, Mindwell Psychology Bethesda