This morning, I read an excellent post about resilience from Nedra Tawwab. The nugget of her article is: “Can’t we just let people feel stuff without jumping in to tell them the bright side, or highlight the resilience.” And, to that, I say: Hear hear!
As a Highly Sensitive Person, I can’t tell you how many times people have tried to impart their life lessons on me (and I’m certain I’ve done the same thing to others including to my own children): “It’s all for the best”, “Think about all those people in XYZ situation — you are way better off than them.”
The thing is, we’re not robots — we’re humans with feelings. We WILL get upset, we WILL feel annoyed, frustrated, lonely, sad, angry, quiet, disappointed, etc. It’s all part of the human experience. And children are no different.
I know from being a parent, writing about mental health for magazines and websites, and from working in a daycare as an ECE professional that, these days, parents and teachers are often heard saying things like, “you’re fine” or “let’s be brave, okay?” or “what lesson did you learn here?”
While those aren’t necessarily bad phrases to utter, the problem comes when we teach children that they can’t trust their own feelings or reactions. And then we foist our lesson-plans or objectives onto to kids. As Nedra says, “can’t we just let people [in this case, children] feel stuff?!”
I’ve written about the resilience fallacy both on KidsAndMentalHealth.com as well as this Substack channel. While being resilient is a fine character trait, it cannot be forced onto people. Humans become resilient through building their self-confidence, having the adults around us support, love, encourage and back us up.
So, the next time you’re tempted to utter “suck it up, buttercup” type phrasing, think again. Instead, think about offering, “I’m sorry you’re feeling this way”, “I am here for you” or “Tell me more about how you’re feeling.”
Yours in peaceful parenting,
Lisa