Raising Resilient Children: Fostering Strength, Hope, and Optimism in Your Child Book

Here are my notes:

PURPOSE:
To foster strength, hope and optimism in children (resilience)
Children are in parent's care; trying to not mess them up too bad.

CONTENTS:

The Dreams and Wishes of Parents
- Kids perspective on how we handle mistakes matters, key learning
- Fear of mistakes is one of the most potent obstacle to learning 
- Meet life's challenges with strength and courage

Teaching and Conveying Empathy
- Plant seeds of lifelong success by modeling empathy
- Empathy is foundation for communication
- Forming friendships is foundational for resilience
- Kids are just as deserving of empathy as any adult

Communicating Effectively: To Listen, to Learn, to Influence
- The purpose of humor is to generate warmth
- Acknowledge kids perspective and respect their views
- Reflect:  How Am I teaching empathy?   How am I conveying respect?   How am I modeling mistakes and losses as learning opportunities?   How am I promoting self discipline?

Changing the Words of Parenting: Rewriting Negative Scripts
- Why do we persist in parenting practices that are counter productive?
- Parenting practice is to create an environment in which kids are more likely to listen and be responsive to requests
- Changing words / tones / patterns is not spoiling or indulging
- All kids are NOT the same
- Kids should not and will not be thankful for parental effort (don't expect applause)
- Extinction: habits weaken over time if they're not re-used and eventually go extinct
- Focus on realism and solving problems, not fears of the longer term or precedent setting (kids change so much)

Loving Our Children in Ways that Help Them Feel Special and Appreciated
- Love is a process, a means by which we provide kids with support every day of their lives
- Healthy kids believe they hold a special place in their parent's hearts; they sense that their parents enjoy being with them
- Feelings special and appreciated in their parents eyes leads kids to believe they are loveable and worthwhile
- Every kid needs a charismatic adult from whom they can gather strength
- Ask yourself: Are my kids gathering strength from my words and actions?   
- Spend more energy loving than controlling children (how do you control yourself?)
- Secure and appreciated children are less demanding

Accepting Our Children for Who They Are: Foundations for setting realistic goals and expectations
- Fairness is responding to each child based on that child's temperaments and needs
- Just as children look different they have different temperaments
- Show all children that their perspective is heard and understood; does not mean condoned or approved
- There's a "goodness of fit" bias for all parents based on their own personalities, temperaments, etc.
- Examine cases in which a child's actual behavior differs from what's hoped for or expected
- Full acceptance (no "I accept you, but...") is needed for establishing realistic goals
- So many parents go-to is "let's fix what you're doing wrong" - this is not conducive of cultivating strength and a resilient mindset in children
- When children convey expectations in accepting, loving and supportive ways, children are often motivated to exceeed those expectations

Experiencing Success: Nurturing Islands of Competence
- Island of competence in ocean of inadequacy; strengths build resilience
- Joy of success contributes to recognizing a personal strength
- Kids need to assume realistic credit
- Some kids do not see their strengths; they need to be shown (best one in the family at making mom angry...)
- Accepting successes mean it's not luck or accidental
- If we want better grades for our kids they need to see success of grades they are getting; own the result
- Kids successes are not for making their parents feel good; kids are to be accepted unconditionally
- A resilient mindset is reinforced by successes building on successes, and experienced joyfully
- Image of kid learning to walk; smiles and joy of mastery of each stage
- Kids need to see success as coming from, in part, their own inner resources
- They need to believe they have within themselves the capability to be successful and solve problems
- "Pills do not substitute for skills" with regard to ADHD drugs
- Success is satisfying when it is free of conditional love and unrealistic expectations, linked to interests, and deeply felt as coming from inner resources

Learning from Mistakes
- Attribute mistakes to factors that can be changed, not immutable aspects of their personality
- Difficult situations can be viewed as challenges to undertake rather than stresses to avoid
- School is a place from which the kids gather strength
- It is a therapeutic task to modify perceptions to enable change
- Understanding a perspective does not mean agreeing with it; validating means simply acknowledging that it is there and it is "real"
- Consider:   Would i want anyone to say to me what I am saying to my child?
- Realistic expectations:  "It takes time to learn to balance a two-wheeler and most kids have difficulty" - minimizes impact of mistakes and sets the bar realistically
- None of us know what our children can accomplish.  We know accomplishments will be greater if kids are not burdened by fear of mistakes and fear of failure

Developing Responsibility, Compassion and a Social Conscience
- Consider:   A "curriculum for caring" to develop a caring skill base
- Kids need to see themselves as a contributing member of the family and ultimately society
- Distinguish chores/responsibilities from the natural instinct to be helpful to others
- As a parent follow through on what you say you will do 
- Model responsibility
- Praise kids helpfulness and that they make a difference
- Talk about reminders for forgetting responsibilities so it's not nagging
- Kids who are involved in something larger than themselves report higher levels of well-being

Teaching our Children to Make Decisions and Solve Problems
- Empowerment reduces times in empty power struggles
- Offer choices (all ones that are okay)
- Tell kids:  "It's your choice."
- Ask: "Since we're human we and we forget, how can we establish reminders?"
- Teach kids to solve their own problems
- They learn to "steer life's ship"

Disciplining in Ways that promote self-discipline and self-worth
- Discipline is fundamentally a teaching or educational process
- Practices that intimidate, humiliate or embarrass children may be effective in the moment, however they damage the relationship and they do not teach
- Discipline is needed to parents provide a consistent, safe and secure environment in which children not only learn reasonable rules, limits and consequences but that they exist for a reason
- As important is that effective discipline nurtures self-discipline and emotional intelligence
- Discipline is less effective with anger or urgency - that's not teaching that's likely punitive
- If discipline increases level of tension and anger it's likely not effective
- Doing what your parents did is likely unimaginative and probably did not serve a resilient mindset
- Consider:  Are my kids learning from my disciplinary practices or do they continue to do the same things and there's just more resentment and anger?
- Punishment is often the least effective form of disciplines because it teaches kids what not to do rather than what to do
- Discipline with anger or physical/verbal punishment is more likely to result in kids remembering the punishment than the reasons they were punished
- The big lesson from punitive discipline is that if a person bigger than you doesn't like what you do, they can hit or yell or bully you rather than figure out how to resolve the problem reasonably
- Empathy with parents who beat their kids.   "We agree with you that it's important for children to learn respect and cooperating and how to get along with people"  We have a difference of opinion about the methods to attain that goal.
- Discipline must be consistent:   A difficult day at work is not a reason to punish a kid for the same behavior that was okay the day before.   That creates a crazy childhood.
- Consider:   "You are raising an important point.  It's one that I wouldn't be comfortable deciding on without first discussing it with your mom (dad)."
- Guilt of not spending time with the kid or not being loved is not a legitimate reason to avoid setting limits.
- Kids may be unhappy however it's loving toward them to develop a resilient mindset by teaching appropriate limits and consequences
- Kid will get upset with the choices, however they will learn a sense of accountability which is essential for their life success
- Raise the bar in a reasonable fashion
- Enlist kids input in the disciplinary process so they understand rules and limits
- Explain why the problem is a problem, possible solutions, ways of reminding, consequences of forgetting
- On yelling: Thanks for letting me know, it would be difficult to hear what I'm saying if I am yelling
- Consistency is not inflexibility or rigidity
- The purpose of discipline is to teach kids to be more responsible, better problem solvers and more resilient
- Consider that you take a time out rather than kid so discipline can be constructive 

The Alliance Between Parents and Schools
- Partnership with teach is critical; work to create an atmosphere of genuine respect
- First contact is important in getting off on the right foot (not about a complaint or issue)
- In school meetings go in prepared: what do we hope to accomplish?  And how do we articulate it so we're like to be understood?
- There is no dichotomy between job/academic success and self-worth.   They work hand in hand (don't need buttons of "i'm lovable")
- Parents are responsible for knowing how long it takes kid to do assignments, what they say about school, etc. and sharing that with the teacher
- Educational strategies should be considered in how they a) foster resilience; b) will be measured; c) alternatives considered
- Empathy exercise:  what words would you use to describe a teacher you liked vs. how kids would describe you.
- Resilience means perceiving mistakes as opportunities to learn rather than defeats; as things to work on and master rather than attributes of who they are
- Teachers can make it okay:
- Who feels they might make a mistake this year?
- How do we want to handle mistakes?
- Seeing mistakes as part of the learning process, not ancillary and not something to be embarrassed about
- See that many discipline problems are actually a fear of looking foolish (rather get in trouble than look dumb)
- What's the best way to remember rules so I'm not nagging you?

Hope and Courage
- Transitional moments are ones that change the direction of life (satori - like - they stop you and you go in different direction)
- Kids need hope they can be better and do more and courage to pursue it
- Kids display tremendous courage every day - they must to go to school and survive!
- As a parent want to be seen as support and resource rather than critic and judge
- Red Queens and Rumpelstiltskins inadvertently reduce resilience by trying to help and motivate in ways that are counterproductive

Guideposts and Principles for Raising Resilient Children

REFLECTIONS