"Kids are resilient!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents use that line to justify bad choices that they know hurt their child. That’s the only time I’ve ever heard it used.

It’s the parents job to be resilient - young kids shouldn’t be forced to be.

I disagree. Never in the history of humankind, there was so much pressure on the parents (and especially mothers) to be perfect and to cater to our children, while of course maintaining a successful career, a perfect home, and a great social circle. Mothers are expected to breastfeed (even if it kills them), come up with ridiculous amounts of stimulation for their children, be super involved in their kids' lives and schooling, etc. And we are not allowed to use any crutches: no bouncers, no screens, no drop off playdates, no riding the bus to get to the practice (pretty much ever). So I think that people use this phrase to rebel against the constant mom shaming. Here, I don't mean the serious abuse that OP mentions but:
- Kids can be formula-fed. They are resilient.
- Kids can be bored for a while. They are resilient.
- Kids can eat purees or do BLW. Kids are resilient.
- Kids can eat something quick on the go, rather than your perfectly thought-through organic lunch that you prepared. They are resilient.

As your kids grow, you need to teach them resilience. Yes, I am resilient as a parent, but my parents also gave me space to become resilient. If I did not turn in my homework, I got an F. No, my mom did not call the teacher to give her all the excuses for me. I dealt with an F. You need to give your kids space to fail and to make mistakes, rather than foreshadowing every single move and misstep. As long as you love them, feed them, and support them, your kids will be fine.

These are not examples of resiliency. Resiliency is process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors- per the APA.

Being formula fed vs breastfed is a decision not something the child has to overcome. If you dont turn in your homework and get an F thats natural consequence.

Right? LOLing at the idea that the choice between purees and BLW is the crucible for resilience.

Same!! That PP needs a dictionary. Those examples are hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are someone who says this, why do you say it? Do you actually believe it? Or do you say it because you really want it to be true?

To me it makes no sense. Adults who are in therapy are often in therapy for issues stemming from childhood. ACE scores predict things as diverse as diabetes, obesity, education attainment levels, adult salaries, etc. Childhood bullying has been shown to have impacts in adults. From what I see, there is a mountain of data that shows that kids aren't resilient and that saying that they are is, at best, wishful magical thinking. At worst, the saying is used as a cover for abusive or otherwise awful behavior. It feels like gaslighting to me, a way of diminishing the trauma that children endure.

I'm a parent of teens now, and at this point, if someone uses that phrase, I start to get pretty skeptical of what they are saying. This is just based on my experience, but it made me wonder: why do you say it?

I was listening to a podcast once, and the speaker hit it on the head, I think:

Kids are not as resilient as much as they are adaptable. They rely on parents/ caregivers to give them love and safety and will adapt to the situation in order to maximize those things.

Resilience is really only built when they have the love and safety to start with.

As an adult child of an alcoholic, this resonated with me. I’m adaptable to pretty much any situation, but there is all kinds of f’d up that goes with it because I wasn’t loved or safe. It’s why kids from a divorced family that is still loving and coparents well may do better than a kid who is brought up in a stressful household.


In any case, it’s really stuck with me.

[Anonymous]

OP here, up with insomnia and posting to DCUM, probably not the best coping mechanism myself, haha. Thank you all for some really great insights. This is why I read DCUM. I think the PP above who discussed the colloquial versus more clinical/formal usage made a good point in particular. I think of the phrase more clinically, I guess, something associated with ACE scores and trauma. That's why the usage sometimes grates on me, I think. But if you are using it colloquially, then it has a much lighter connotation. I will remember this next time I hear the phrase (and better control my internal wince).

Someone also said above that even for kids who experience trauma, you want them to see there is life beyond trauma, and moving past trauma is a form of resiliency. I think they were talking about not wanting to be 30 years old and thinking of themselves as irrecoverably harmed. I'm not sure what to think about that. I have objective trauma in my life (sexual assault as a child), and while I feel lucky things are pretty good for me now, I don't really connect the good aspects of my life now with "getting past" the assault. I guess I don't really see the harm in saying that I was irrevocably harmed by that event. I mean, I was, you know? Things happened to me that I won't ever get past, and I am not sure what the harm is in just being honest about that.

I also thought the points about adaptability versus resilience were thought-provoking.

Anyhow thanks everyone, hope the conversation continues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Resilient” = bouncing back from typical disappointments, changes, etc. Moving to a new school and making new friends. Losing their lovey and picking a new one. It’s not the same as getting through abuse/neglect without issue.

I used it in regards to wearing masks this year. Not one kid at my son’s private school had any issues with masks after the first week. They adapted and moved on.

This

You’re confusing resilient with adaptable

Ok so then explain when and how someone can be resilient.

DP. In my opinion they are just different scales. Adaptable is like masks or a child who loses a limb. Children are very adaptable in that they basically accept changes to their environment and move on. Putting on masks isn't traumatic, its change to their physical environment that they just roll with.

Being ripped out of school and away from their peers for a year while under the fearful cloud of a pandemic, their family's struggling finances, the sickness or death of family members, this is traumatic and stressful. Resiliency is a child's ability to feel that stress and keep going. Keep getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, going to their classes, loving their family, listening to music under the specter of that stress, and eventually, resuming their lives and incorporating it into their lived experience and have it not create lifelong struggles, or not allow the effects to control the course their lives take.

A mask is a neutral thing, it has emotional weight because of external circumstances. So like losing a limb, the prosthetic is just a thing, and your body and mind may or may not easily adapt to using it. Whatever caused you to lose the limb is a trauma that you have to deal with, and may leak into things like how you learn how to use the prosthetic, but the trauma and the physical objects you are adjusting to are different things.

Good examples. But I’m trying to understand why saying kids are resilient if they clearly can be so is a bad thing then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, up with insomnia and posting to DCUM, probably not the best coping mechanism myself, haha. Thank you all for some really great insights. This is why I read DCUM. I think the PP above who discussed the colloquial versus more clinical/formal usage made a good point in particular. I think of the phrase more clinically, I guess, something associated with ACE scores and trauma. That's why the usage sometimes grates on me, I think. But if you are using it colloquially, then it has a much lighter connotation. I will remember this next time I hear the phrase (and better control my internal wince).

Someone also said above that even for kids who experience trauma, you want them to see there is life beyond trauma, and moving past trauma is a form of resiliency. I think they were talking about not wanting to be 30 years old and thinking of themselves as irrecoverably harmed. I'm not sure what to think about that. I have objective trauma in my life (sexual assault as a child), and while I feel lucky things are pretty good for me now, I don't really connect the good aspects of my life now with "getting past" the assault. I guess I don't really see the harm in saying that I was irrevocably harmed by that event. I mean, I was, you know? Things happened to me that I won't ever get past, and I am not sure what the harm is in just being honest about that.

I also thought the points about adaptability versus resilience were thought-provoking.

Anyhow thanks everyone, hope the conversation continues.

I'm the poster who wrote that! And I struggled with how to write it, because of course you are irrevocably harmed. The harm cannot be erased. I grew up with an alcoholic parent and a borderline parent, both of whom were abusive in their own ways, I was the child of divorce and had a sibling die and all of those things have left an indelible mark on me. I am irrevocably harmed, it will always be a part of my life experiences and shape who I am to an extent.

But I am happily married with children of my own and I think I have not continued the cycle. I work hard at it. I go to therapy, I practice gratitude, a bunch of other mushy crap that essentially means my life is good and I am fine now.

Many kids who go through childhood trauma or sexual trauma specifically don't end up fine. They can't stop thinking about the event, they can't move past it. They end up turning to substances for coping, or get into bad relationships trying to rectify wounds from their childhood. So what is the difference between these kids and us? These people are less resilient. That is not an indictment of them, that isn't a criticism. It isn't fair that they were put into situations where their resilience became the one thing that could predict their future happiness. Society/their parents/someone failed them. And it is true that some people are more naturally resilient than others, but just like some people are naturally smarter or good at basketball, that doesn't mean that others who are less naturally gifted cannot work to hone the skill.

I think people who say this phrase as a means of making light of childhood trauma are really wrong to do so. Children need help and support to become resilient. But I also think that people who write off resiliency as something unimportant. It is very important, it needs to be taught, it should be embraced. It is an innate human skill that children are naturally good at. And we should be grateful for this because it is why we can not be 100% perfect but still be good parents. Our kids forgive us, they see us, they recover from hurts big and small.

This is long but I guess my point is that resilience shouldn't be talked about like its just this easy great quality of kids that we take for granted when we fail them. It is something we should be grateful for, that we should cultivate, that we should support them through learning, because even if they don't end up with ACE scores (god willing) they will experience things that are hard. Their heart will be broken, they will struggle in a class, they will have a friend disappoint them, their child will struggle, and they will need resilience in those moments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Resilient” = bouncing back from typical disappointments, changes, etc. Moving to a new school and making new friends. Losing their lovey and picking a new one. It’s not the same as getting through abuse/neglect without issue.

I used it in regards to wearing masks this year. Not one kid at my son’s private school had any issues with masks after the first week. They adapted and moved on.

This

You’re confusing resilient with adaptable

Ok so then explain when and how someone can be resilient.

DP. In my opinion they are just different scales. Adaptable is like masks or a child who loses a limb. Children are very adaptable in that they basically accept changes to their environment and move on. Putting on masks isn't traumatic, its change to their physical environment that they just roll with.

Being ripped out of school and away from their peers for a year while under the fearful cloud of a pandemic, their family's struggling finances, the sickness or death of family members, this is traumatic and stressful. Resiliency is a child's ability to feel that stress and keep going. Keep getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, going to their classes, loving their family, listening to music under the specter of that stress, and eventually, resuming their lives and incorporating it into their lived experience and have it not create lifelong struggles, or not allow the effects to control the course their lives take.

A mask is a neutral thing, it has emotional weight because of external circumstances. So like losing a limb, the prosthetic is just a thing, and your body and mind may or may not easily adapt to using it. Whatever caused you to lose the limb is a trauma that you have to deal with, and may leak into things like how you learn how to use the prosthetic, but the trauma and the physical objects you are adjusting to are different things.

Good examples. But I’m trying to understand why saying kids are resilient if they clearly can be so is a bad thing then.

Because sometimes people will do things like move their family to another state when their kid is halfway through their junior year and write off that struggle because kids are resilient.

Because sometimes people act horrifically in a divorce and put the kids in the middle and talk about kids being resilient to make themselves not feel so guilty.

These aren't good, but that doesn't mean resilience isn't good or important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, up with insomnia and posting to DCUM, probably not the best coping mechanism myself, haha. Thank you all for some really great insights. This is why I read DCUM. I think the PP above who discussed the colloquial versus more clinical/formal usage made a good point in particular. I think of the phrase more clinically, I guess, something associated with ACE scores and trauma. That's why the usage sometimes grates on me, I think. But if you are using it colloquially, then it has a much lighter connotation. I will remember this next time I hear the phrase (and better control my internal wince).

Someone also said above that even for kids who experience trauma, you want them to see there is life beyond trauma, and moving past trauma is a form of resiliency. I think they were talking about not wanting to be 30 years old and thinking of themselves as irrecoverably harmed. I'm not sure what to think about that. I have objective trauma in my life (sexual assault as a child), and while I feel lucky things are pretty good for me now, I don't really connect the good aspects of my life now with "getting past" the assault. I guess I don't really see the harm in saying that I was irrevocably harmed by that event. I mean, I was, you know? Things happened to me that I won't ever get past, and I am not sure what the harm is in just being honest about that.

I also thought the points about adaptability versus resilience were thought-provoking.

Anyhow thanks everyone, hope the conversation continues.

I'm the poster who wrote that! And I struggled with how to write it, because of course you are irrevocably harmed. The harm cannot be erased. I grew up with an alcoholic parent and a borderline parent, both of whom were abusive in their own ways, I was the child of divorce and had a sibling die and all of those things have left an indelible mark on me. I am irrevocably harmed, it will always be a part of my life experiences and shape who I am to an extent.

But I am happily married with children of my own and I think I have not continued the cycle. I work hard at it. I go to therapy, I practice gratitude, a bunch of other mushy crap that essentially means my life is good and I am fine now.

Many kids who go through childhood trauma or sexual trauma specifically don't end up fine. They can't stop thinking about the event, they can't move past it. They end up turning to substances for coping, or get into bad relationships trying to rectify wounds from their childhood. So what is the difference between these kids and us? These people are less resilient. That is not an indictment of them, that isn't a criticism. It isn't fair that they were put into situations where their resilience became the one thing that could predict their future happiness. Society/their parents/someone failed them. And it is true that some people are more naturally resilient than others, but just like some people are naturally smarter or good at basketball, that doesn't mean that others who are less naturally gifted cannot work to hone the skill.

I think people who say this phrase as a means of making light of childhood trauma are really wrong to do so. Children need help and support to become resilient. But I also think that people who write off resiliency as something unimportant. It is very important, it needs to be taught, it should be embraced. It is an innate human skill that children are naturally good at. And we should be grateful for this because it is why we can not be 100% perfect but still be good parents. Our kids forgive us, they see us, they recover from hurts big and small.

This is long but I guess my point is that resilience shouldn't be talked about like its just this easy great quality of kids that we take for granted when we fail them. It is something we should be grateful for, that we should cultivate, that we should support them through learning, because even if they don't end up with ACE scores (god willing) they will experience things that are hard. Their heart will be broken, they will struggle in a class, they will have a friend disappoint them, their child will struggle, and they will need resilience in those moments.

OP here. I think this makes a lot of sense.

Thinking about it (and your post crystallized something for me), maybe the thing that bothers me about the phrase is the "are." In other words, if people said "kids can be resilient," I think it wouldn't grate as much. The wildflower versus orchid versus tulip analogy is a good one, to me. Some kids have more natural reserves than others (maybe me and you, from the sounds of it). But some don't.

I remember one of my kids' coaches years ago saying "all kids are natural gymnasts" and I remember thinking at the time that no, they all aren't. Some kids, definitely. But many kids aren't. It didn't bother me; we were in a gym when he said it and we all understood the context. I think "kids are resilient" is a similar generalization, though.

[Anonymous]

As a veteran teacher of high school students in a high poverty region, I would say this:

Yes, kids (people) are resilient. I have seen my students excel beyond any expectation after lives of hardship.

But, social advantages matter, a lot. So many of my students and their parents, wonderful human beings, will never “bounce back” fully from the hardships they have been dealt. They will be out-performed by mediocre folks with financial advantages. They will have harder lives, through no fault of their own. I see it time and time again.

Resilience is real. But it’s not everything. Context matters. If you have been up close...it will break your heart. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are someone who says this, why do you say it? Do you actually believe it? Or do you say it because you really want it to be true?

To me it makes no sense. Adults who are in therapy are often in therapy for issues stemming from childhood. ACE scores predict things as diverse as diabetes, obesity, education attainment levels, adult salaries, etc. Childhood bullying has been shown to have impacts in adults. From what I see, there is a mountain of data that shows that kids aren't resilient and that saying that they are is, at best, wishful magical thinking. At worst, the saying is used as a cover for abusive or otherwise awful behavior. It feels like gaslighting to me, a way of diminishing the trauma that children endure.

I'm a parent of teens now, and at this point, if someone uses that phrase, I start to get pretty skeptical of what they are saying. This is just based on my experience, but it made me wonder: why do you say it?

People are resilient when they have systems to support them. Americans can't deal with hard things which is why they deny things (cue pandemic)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are someone who says this, why do you say it? Do you actually believe it? Or do you say it because you really want it to be true?

To me it makes no sense. Adults who are in therapy are often in therapy for issues stemming from childhood. ACE scores predict things as diverse as diabetes, obesity, education attainment levels, adult salaries, etc. Childhood bullying has been shown to have impacts in adults. From what I see, there is a mountain of data that shows that kids aren't resilient and that saying that they are is, at best, wishful magical thinking. At worst, the saying is used as a cover for abusive or otherwise awful behavior. It feels like gaslighting to me, a way of diminishing the trauma that children endure.

I'm a parent of teens now, and at this point, if someone uses that phrase, I start to get pretty skeptical of what they are saying. This is just based on my experience, but it made me wonder: why do you say it?

People are resilient when they have systems to support them. Americans can't deal with hard things which is why they deny things (cue pandemic)

So Americans didn’t have support systems in the 1950s? They are largely the people denying the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a veteran teacher of high school students in a high poverty region, I would say this:

Yes, kids (people) are resilient. I have seen my students excel beyond any expectation after lives of hardship.

But, social advantages matter, a lot. So many of my students and their parents, wonderful human beings, will never “bounce back” fully from the hardships they have been dealt. They will be out-performed by mediocre folks with financial advantages. They will have harder lives, through no fault of their own. I see it time and time again.

Resilience is real. But it’s not everything. Context matters. If you have been up close...it will break your heart. Period.

OP here. I found this insightful, thank you.

[Anonymous]

This is long but I guess my point is that resilience shouldn't be talked about like its just this easy great quality of kids that we take for granted when we fail them. It is something we should be grateful for, that we should cultivate, that we should support them through learning, because even if they don't end up with ACE scores (god willing) they will experience things that are hard. Their heart will be broken, they will struggle in a class, they will have a friend disappoint them, their child will struggle, and they will need resilience in those moments.

I agree with this. Some of the nuance in the use of this word depends on whether you are using in advance of making an adult decision without fair consideration of the needs of a child or whether you are using it after a child has experienced disappointment to cultivate and inspire the type of care and attention that kids need to carry on and thrive despite challenges or difficult circumstances.

Resilience needs to be cultivated. Every child deserves to be put in situations where they can succeed, be safe, and grow. Sometimes, that doesn't happen, which is where resilience comes in. The resilience of children should not be an excuse to make adult decision that are not in the children's best interest. However, building resilience requires that children actually face setbacks and disappointments and persist despite them. To me, being resilient requires emotional awareness and understanding, as well as self-confidence. If you say "kids are resilient" before you move a kid in the middle of high school, you are denying the real problems that will come with that decision. Instead, the response should be, "I know that I'm asking a lot of you with this move. You are going to have to make new friend and get used to a new city. That's going to be hard. I understand why you are angry. Let's think about how we can make this work." Denying the validity of a child's emotions will not make them more resilient. Acknowledging their emotional need and supporting them through struggles will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are someone who says this, why do you say it? Do you actually believe it? Or do you say it because you really want it to be true?

To me it makes no sense. Adults who are in therapy are often in therapy for issues stemming from childhood. ACE scores predict things as diverse as diabetes, obesity, education attainment levels, adult salaries, etc. Childhood bullying has been shown to have impacts in adults. From what I see, there is a mountain of data that shows that kids aren't resilient and that saying that they are is, at best, wishful magical thinking. At worst, the saying is used as a cover for abusive or otherwise awful behavior. It feels like gaslighting to me, a way of diminishing the trauma that children endure.

I'm a parent of teens now, and at this point, if someone uses that phrase, I start to get pretty skeptical of what they are saying. This is just based on my experience, but it made me wonder: why do you say it?

Kids are resilient, when you talk about small issues and/or a fairly small number of things. When every day is a struggle, no, it just leads to problems then or down the road.

A lot of people who say this are willfully blind or trying to convince themselves that they're right. Frequently there's nothing they can do to really change the situation for the child, and the only thing they can do is teach the child how to handle situations outside of their control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What seems to be happen between these two camps is the different definition of "resilient"

The "never say this!" camp seems to use the formal APA definition (as posted above) regarding the ability to bounce back from adversity/trauma/tragedy

The "totally say it!" camp seems to use the more colloquial definition, that children are innately adaptable, flexible, mailable, and can recover from quite a lot of they are provided the proper love and care.

I am in the "totally say it" camp and i come from a lot of "trauma" (parental death as a young child, faced physical abuse, emotional neglect, etc). Personally, I find it to be more optimistic to focus on the naturally resilient nature humans have, rather than to act as if this trauma will define them forever. But resilience is something that needs to be taught and modeled, therapy is important. In times of stress, look to those helping. Humans are beautiful and naturally resilient.

But I would never say this to a child directly, that is invalidating to their emotions ... but when a neurotic mom is hemming and hawing to me about something like BLW vs purees, or a scraped knee, or overly concerned about developmental milestones - I respond with "kids are resilient" to (a) shut down my participation in what I think is needless worrying, and (b) to reassure the parent that this will not "break" your child. There is a lot of pressure to be the "perfect parent" but you can't protect them from all of life's hardships.

If a close friend (not an acquaintance) was talking to me about true trauma their child is dealing with (divorce, death, etc) then I would NEVER respond to a friend with something so flippant.

This absolutely crystalizes it for me, especially the last part about context.

OP, this has been an illuminating thread. I have been just plain lucky that I had supportive and loving parents and was spared from so many hardships that others have had to face, through no fault nor merit of my own. Just lucky. I appreciate the perspectives that others have shared.