Resilience

 “Resilience is a process focusing upon strengths to overcome adversity.” 

Resilience is a word that I hear often as I work to support families and children through this pandemic.  Resilience is defined as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. We have talked about change a lot in the past few posts and one way to change our thinking about what we are experiencing during this pandemic is to focus on how we are growing. There are many webinars and presentations right now that are focusing on building resilience in students and families.  I recently listened to a webinar where the speaker talked about emotional regulation. He asked the group if we saw ourselves as “emotion scientists” or “emotion judges”.  An emotion scientist “accepts all emotions as information, is open, curious, and reflective, and has a growth mindset.  An emotion judge “views emotions as weak, sees emotions as permanent, is critical, closed, and ignores emotions, clumps emotions as good or bad, and has a “fixed mindset.” He encouraged us to become an emotion scientist and not to see our emotions as permanent.  One suggestion he offered was to use positive self-talk (saying encouraging words about yourself in your head – using third person helps), re-appraising the situation (looking at it with a different spin), and think of it as giving advice to someone else (what would you say to someone else who is stressed about the demands of their job).  As we return to a new school year that looks different from any year we have faced, many of us struggle with resilience.  It’s easy to think that learning and working will be difficult because we have not experienced a start to the school year like this before.  We may look back at the spring and think of the things that were difficult and did not work out the way that we planned.  Despite those difficulties, we managed three months of virtual learning with little preparation and experience with that format of learning. As we approach this new school year, we may feel disappointment and have thoughts such as “I can’t see my friends in school” or “It is hard to learn virtually.” In the webinar, the presenter offered a suggestion to add the words “Even if” in front of something that is difficult for you. By adding the phrase “Even if” in front of our thoughts, we are forced to choose another outcome (e.g., “Even if it is hard to learn virtually, my teachers and family members are still there to help me so I can reach out to them and ask for help if I need it.”  It was also suggested that we think of others who have faced adversity and look at how they have still continued to thrive. Here is additional information about using the “Even if” statement to reframe our thoughts https://apertureed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Even-If-1.pdf

Finally, a leading psychologist, Sam Goldstein, who has researched and presented about resilience offers the following acronym to help us foster a problem solving mindset.  He uses the word GROW to offer a set of steps to use as we problem solve:

G- goal – determine what I am trying to accomplish

R- reality – what are the obstacles to reaching that goal

O- options – what are the options/solutions available

W- way forward- how do a I move forward   

He also offers the following strategies to foster resilience in children:

•Teach empathy by practicing empathy

•Teach responsibility by encouraging contributions

•Teach decision making and problem solving skills that foster self-discipline

•Offer encouragement and positive feedback

•Help children deal with mistakes and how to cope with them

My Reflections:

2 Challenges

• We are experiencing an ongoing crisis where we experiencing ongoing stress and change.  We are not given the opportunity to deal with the crisis and move forward because the ending date of the crisis is unknown.  

• Many of our plans for the school year are changing or uncertain and it is hard to be resilient when we are faced with several disappointments at once or changes that come with short notice.  

2 Positives

• I have been impressed with how my own children have demonstrated resiliency during this pandemic. I have noticed this especially with my older son who has chronic medical conditions (food allergies and asthma).  My son often has to refuse food because he is not sure if the food is safe (due to the possibility of cross contamination with his allergens).  Initially, when he was diagnosed with food allergies, he often felt sad that he was missing out on certain treats. Through the years, he has come to understand and accept that “even if” he could not have a certain food that was offered in that moment, most likely he could have an alternative later that day. He learned that he can still have the foods that he wanted, he sometimes just has to wait for them and has become more resilient in handling his medical condition.

• I’ve learned about how others have faced adversity.  My grandmother who is in her late 90’s had measles as a child.  At that time, her younger brother contracted measles and died at 2 years of age.  My grandmother has shared more about what that was like and how her house was marked as “quarantined” when her family was ill.  Her experience in quarantine as a child was different than how she is quarantining now with COVID and it has been interesting to learn how she adapted and thrived.  

What can I do differently tomorrow to build resilience?

• I have started to add the words “Even if” when I am faced with a disappointment and that helps me to reframe it in a positive way. 

Your Reflections:

2 Challenges

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2 Positives

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What can you do differently tomorrow to build resilience?

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