Teach Your Children Mental Resilience

Man­ag­ing men­tal resilience and health is chal­leng­ing enough as an adult.

We can under­stand why we’re stressed or upset, we know there are resources and tools to help us. (Review Chap­ters 3 Dou­ble Your Resilience, Chap­ter 6 Deal with Your Emo­tion­al Junk and Chap­ter 7 Man­age Your Men­tal Health in Your Oxy­gen Mask First for more about this.) And we’ve lived long enough to know that we some­times can’t man­age our way out of it alone.

How­ev­er, it’s dif­fer­ent for our chil­dren. They don’t have the per­spec­tive to artic­u­late their stress, or to ask for help.

One of the fall­outs of this pan­dem­ic, we’re now see­ing, is how much our kids are strug­gling with uncer­tain­ty and wor­ry and lack of social inter­ac­tion. And we’re learn­ing how impor­tant it is to teach our chil­dren men­tal resilience and how to man­age their emo­tions in an uncer­tain world.

Learn­ing this crit­i­cal life skill can’t wait until they are in a career and stressed on the job.

Two-thirds of chil­dren and youth in British Colum­bia are strug­gling with mild to mod­er­ate men­tal health chal­lenges dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, up from one third before the arrival of COVID-19. — Van­cou­ver Sun

It’s heart­break­ing that so many kids are suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety, can’t focus, feel lone­ly and even sui­ci­dal. And not encour­ag­ing that we lack the social ser­vice sup­ports to help them.

That being said, there is a lot we can do at home, start­ing at an ear­ly age. Teach­ing them how to deal with their emo­tions appro­pri­ate­ly is as impor­tant as learn­ing how to cross the street safe­ly and know how to swim, to be inde­pen­dent, to have good hygiene and man­ners, to have com­pas­sion and to contribute.

• Pay atten­tion. We get so busy man­ag­ing day-to-day activ­i­ties we often miss cues.
• Val­i­date your child’s emo­tions. Acknowl­edge it’s OK to have feel­ings of all kinds.
• Be calm and a safe place to land.
• Teach them. Show them how to calm them­selves down, and to express them­selves appropriately.
• Man­age their sleep and screen time.
• Mod­el resilience behav­iours. How you behave when you are stressed – and what you do to mit­i­gate it — is your best teach­ing tool.
• Get edu­cat­ed. We’re not born know­ing how to man­age every sit­u­a­tion. Every par­ent can learn strate­gies and tools to bet­ter help their children.

Learn­ing and prac­tic­ing resilience rit­u­als, is a lead­er­ship skill that will serve you, your team and your fam­i­ly in every stage of work, self and life.

The Chal­lenge

• How good are you at prac­tic­ing your own resilience rit­u­als so that you are the best ver­sion of your­self, tak­ing care of your body, mind and spirit?
• What con­ver­sa­tions might you have, or tools might you share with the chil­dren in your life?

About Kevin:

CEOs typ­i­cal­ly place their first call to Coach Kevin with a cri­sis to solve. They stay because of his busi­ness acu­men and no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is style.

Kevin’s career spans 20 years, over a dozen coun­tries and four con­ti­nents. He’s worked with hun­dreds of CEOs and exec­u­tives, help­ing them to break through busi­ness chal­lenges, grow their com­pa­nies and find per­son­al suc­cess along the way.

These expe­ri­ences inspired Kevin’s book, Your Oxy­gen Mask First, in which he reveals the 17 habits every leader must know to tran­scend the per­ils of suc­cess, and achieve even more.

About Lawrence & Co:

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.