Reply to "Kids are resilient!"

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Reply to ""Kids are resilient!""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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 [I] aren't [/I]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? [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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