<p>This may best be asked of those who have adult kids or maybe even junior employees in their 20s. How do you encourage them to keep pushing forward and being resilient when things don’t go well?</p>
<p>I’m dealing with a young adult at work who is a very bright woman – everything that parents on here want their kids to be – kind, smart, mature, and really good at seeing situations and character – i.e. not just book smart. But she also has the book smarts as she has 2 ivy degrees and great work experience. She’s hit a bump in the road with her career, as so many have in this economy, and is just ready to give up and go home – i.e. she has tried to figure out some options in other work departments that did not work out, so now she thinks she is incapable and no one would want her and she literally just wants to move back to her home city and do nothing.</p>
<p>I’m all for her taking a break to re-group or even moving cities, but I don’t want her to think she isn’t talented. If she is persistent, she will find the work that is the exact fit for her. (Sadly I’m not in a position to get her hired anywhere or I would; I am doing what I can with references etc.) How do you encourage her without sounding completely clich</p>
<p>96 of us have viewed your post and no reply…I think we would all like the answer to this. Our kids (maybe I am generalizing here) are not as resilient as we were because they have been protected much more. This young lady certainly seems to have done everything right. All you can do is be there for her as a mentor/friend; her resilience will actually be achieved by her failing and then moving on…not giving up but changing course or regrouping. She has to fail in order to become resilient.</p>
<p>It’s very hard to keep it going and be positive, even in 2013. But has she really “given up” or is she reassessing her situation and seeing the future is not there. Is that giving up?</p>
<p>To be fair, your colleague does seem to be resiliant in that she has kept it going through several degrees and in this job. She has tried to make it work, but things didn’t turn out as she had hoped. Sometimes that happens. And sometimes, a job can turn into a dead end. I think it’s very wise of her to find her opportunities elsewhere.</p>
<p>The important point to make is this: It’s not that, “she’s incapable”. It’s simply this place isn’t a good match for her, for whatever the reason. The company’s mission, the mix of people who work there, the feeling that she’s welcome and can grow and be successful …… We all want that wherever we work, but sometimes it just doesn’t jive.</p>
<p>Picking up and looking elsewhere is exactly what she needs. She will shine again.</p>
<p>The most persistent person I know is my son. I think it’s because he picks his own goals and stubbornly doesn’t allow anyone else to suggest or influence what those goals should be. He knows who he is and what he can accomplish. He had good grades in HS and college, but certainly not as high as he was capable. But that wasn’t his goal. He landed some nice jobs out of undergrad in a competitive field where entry level is typically post graduate school due to dogged persistence. </p>
<p>On the other hand, my daughter is like your employee and overachieved in everything she did. She was valedictorian in her HS class, the student/athlete in our city, great leader, and worked to make a difference in our city. She is also kind, smart, and personable. With all that determination, she lacks focus. Without focus, she is floundering and therefore she is not doggedly determined to accomplish anything specific. </p>
<p>It now surprises me that my son is better prepared for the adult world and the difficult employment landscape.</p>
<p>When our kids were young, my husband and I thought hard about this because we believed resiliency is one of the most important skills (traits) our girls would need in life. We wanted them to be able to get up, dust it off and try again when they fall off. We thought an activity where they needed to put themselves out there would help them with that, and that’s why they were so heavily involved with ballet growing up.</p>
<p>D1 wrote a college essay about this exact topic. She said at her ballet classes she had to stand there practically naked and be criticized of her every move, and when she fell down she didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for herself, she had to get right back up to do her next move. Through dance, they have experience triumphs and they have also experienced defeats. D1’s ability to listen and take criticisms well have served her well at work.</p>
<p>I think people who do sports, music, dance, art learn resiliency at young age. They are often pushed to do things beyond what they thought they were capable of, and in doing so, they fail in the beginning, but they learn not to give up if they want to reach their goals. Athletes win one game and they lose another. To do well they need to learn from their mistakes and not give up. Over time, they acquire very strong mental toughness. It is not surprising that many corporations like to hire athletes. </p>
<p>For parents with kids involved in those activities, we learn how to give our kids encouragement and pep talks when needed. We also know from very early on that we can’t swoop in to rescue our kids all the time. D1’s back went out 3 days before her major recital and she had 2 solos. She made the decision to do the recital. No one knew she was in pain, but it was hard for me to watch as a parent. D2 fell flat on her butt during one of her solos. She got up and finished the dance as if it never happened. </p>
<p>For us, I think our kids learned resiliency through dance.</p>
<p>I with that there was a way to teach resilience, resourcefulness, walking-around smarts, “thinking outside the box,” and so forth. Those are the things that I’ve noticed hold some of the smartest people back in their lives. </p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s genetic or environment. I think it’s some of both.</p>
<p>What I think helps:
Lots of positive reinforcement at an early age.
Letting kids take risks, get hurt, and fail.</p>
<p>From what I see, many of us do well with the encouragement. I don’t see many parents encouraging risk taking. Parent want to protect their children for being hurt and want to sugar coat failures.</p>
<p>By the time someone is in their twenties, their character is pretty much set. At that point many people don’t want to do things that make them uncomfortable. Changing behaviors becomes harder.</p>
<p>I think the most important thing is to let kids get jammed or hurt or fail…and pick themselves up and move on. It can happen in many, many ways. For me, I was somewhat dismissive of “boo boos” when the kids, fell down and banged themselves up when they were young. I’d hug them, and then turn them back to whatever they were doing. And I continued that “hug” then let them go, sometimes the hug was metaphorical, but I never, ever dwelled on their failures or stumbles and always stopped the solicitous behavior or prevented them from continuing on with whatever they were engaged in. For other parents it’s letting them keep pushing forth in a sport that they might not be “the best.” And many other examples reported here. For the young girl in the OPs post the most important thing is to let her come to her own conclusions, yes she might feel like a failure, but her making her own decisions and pushing forth with whatever she is going to do will ultimately build some resilience. Sometimes it is genetic, but I also see an awful lot of parents “smoothing” the path, or making too much of “boo boos” to the point that the kids think life is always smooth sailing with no bumps and bruises. </p>
<p>The fall semester crash and burn in my son’s “herd” occurred with a boy whose parents really never gave this kid any space to fail and get in any kind of hole he had to dig himself out of. He was the quintessential perfect kid with perfect parents but zero breathing room. Well, he went off to college and failed big time. I feel so badly for the parents, but many of us (and many of the kid’s peer friends) saw it coming a mile away. </p>
<p>A tree trunk become strong with good soil, plenty of water and nutrients, not too crowded conditions and some strong winds and storms to make it bendable but resilient in adverse conditions.</p>
<p>Realizing that failure is not the end of the world can be helpful. Failure is also relative and largely a matter of self-definition. It’s OK to change plans, adjust, and reevaluate. There is no such thing as a perfect life.</p>
<p>I also believe that having a strong ethical or religious orientation helps people deal with setbacks because they have faith in something other than the here and now. People raised to believe that their value as human beings consists of the sum total of their worldly achievements are going to have a tough time dealing with failure.</p>
<p>My kids learned resiliency through chess and computer games. Chess their teachers always said that you learn more from games you lose than ones you win. You learn more from playing with people better than you than ones you can beat easily. It was a good lesson, I think. Computer games - there are just hundreds of games where the character dies and you have to start all over. Kids gain self esteem from doing things that are hard and picking themselves up. Not from being told how wonderful they are. Not from getting trophies for just participating.</p>
<p>It doesn’t help that we are firmly entrenched in a “risk adverse” “litigation prevalent” society, something that really never was as entrenched in previous generations. My mother was hugely risk adverse and always worrying, and I grew up with similar characteristics. It took a huge gulp to marry my husband who is generally not risk adverse and then to raise three boys into healthy, resilient men who make good decisions. I’ll never be a great skier because I can’t push through the fear and I have a deep seated fear of failure and I didn’t want my kids to be that way. I didn’t want them to fear failure and I wanted them to be able to push through fear barriers when appropriate. I also react negatively to criticism and I didn’t want them to have that reaction because sometimes criticism is healthy and is there to move you forward not paralyze you. I’m a work in progress even in my fifties so I do believe you can learn to be resilient at any age, but how nice to “get through that” at a younger age?</p>
<p>I agree with old fort in that physical activities can teach resilence, and Ill go further and say I have observed kids who wouldnt take risks in the classroom gain confidence to do so after they learn perseverance on the soccer pitch or the ski slopes.</p>
<p>A shame that so many schools are reducing recess & PE, when they have an opportunity to teach students skills that increase not only their health but their academic performance.</p>
<p>^^Yes but most of the items on the common recess field are now gone…because risk adverse and litigant parents “worried” so now most of the time the kids just huddle in a corner. The most recent removal on our elementary playground was the ball on a tether that you hit and it swings around and the other person hits it back…some kid got hit in the face and the parents pitched a fit so the school removed it from the playground. No slides. No monkey bars . No twirling bars (girls underpants might show), no merry go rounds, no teeter totters, no bats and balls…nada, nothing these days but hackey sacks and a basketball hoop. I hesitate to think what future generations of kids will be like.</p>
<p>I believe there is also a heavy genetic component. So much of our kids’ temperament is there from birth. Not saying that all of the above things - encouraging risk-taking, competitive sports, having a chance to fall and get up on your own, etc., can’t help, but I do believe people are born with different levels of drive and ability to forge ahead through difficulty.</p>
<p>Our kids were “blessed/cursed” with chronic health issues for the last 12+ years and had to learn to dig deep within themselves to keep going. We tried to smooth their path as much as we could but ultimately, they had to overcome a lot of academic obstacles in their own. I think this has helped them be more self-aware and more resilient, even tho it was painful to watch. In the long run, I really think developing the inner strength has made them into very capable young adults who aren’t discouraged easily.</p>
<p>I was hoping to see responses because this has been a priority for me in raising my kids and I know there’ve been studies done on this. </p>
<p>From my personal perspective, I do think sports help. I also think that it helps to push kids to take chances. My father used to say that if you were never fired, you never aimed high enough. I realize that’s not always true-- but it sure takes the sting out of one kind of ‘failure.’ Life isn’t about the failures; it’s about the successes. Unfortunately, one of the ways to become resilient is to go through something difficult: one of my kids survived a particularly difficult trauma; that kid always says if I lived through that, I can live through anything.</p>
<p>Agree that sports and dance can help folks develop resilience and determination to persevere, especially when they persist after it gets increasingly challenging.</p>
<p>The most recent removal on our elementary playground was the ball on a tether that you hit and it swings around and the other person hits it back…</p>
<p>I believe you.
Luckily, fear of lawsuits hasn’t hit too hard here yet. I think some schools even still play dodgeball!</p>
<p>“What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger.” That’s so true, but as parents, we often try to shield our kids from any degree of discomfort. That’s just not healthy for their development.</p>
<p>Both our kids played competitive sports and had many trials as a result. Once they got into middle school, we required THEM to go to the coach over playing time and similar other issues. After a certain age, I never went to bat for my kids with teachers until my D had at least made one attempt to advocate for herself. I didn’t correct every error on their homework. I let them “fail” when the consequences were not life altering so they could get practice at how to recover. But like most parents, we didn’t do everything perfectly. I’m a worrier and naturally want to protect my kids.</p>
<p>I saw a Dr. Phil I will never forget. This couple had 3 kids who were absolute hellions. There was very little structure in the home, and it seemed neither Mom nor Dad was willing to say the word “No.” Dr. Phil said “WHY do you let them determine their own bedtime and WHY are you averse to saying ‘NO’ when you should?” The mother responded, “Because we LOVE THEM so much, and when we say no or try to make them do something they don’t want to do, they get upset, and we can’t bear that.” Dr. Phil said “They get upset? So what? They’ll get over it.” </p>
<p>Amazing that anyone would have to be told that, but that’s just an extreme example of parents who don’t want their kids to feel even one moment of discomfort. And that is really bad for their character and development.</p>
<p>I think temperament is something we are born with, but I also believe each child’s ability to develop resilience within their own personal parameters can and must be developed.</p>