Raising Resilient Kids

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It’s hard to stop a resilient person. Whenever they fall, they get back up! A resilient person goes through difficult circumstances and comes out better on the other side. They become stronger in the struggle.

There’s a lot of talk these days about raising resilient kids. Thankfully, resiliency is something that can be learned and taught. God uses the hard things in our lives to teach us endurance and to build our confidence and character. We can also help our children build resilience by helping them to properly face and deal with the struggles life throws at them.

This is an area that I’ve not always gotten right as a parent. As moms, our natural instinct is to protect our children. There have been times when I missed opportunities to help them grow because I chose to shield them instead. But other times I’ve been able to use difficult situations to teach them the importance of pressing forward and not giving up.

The Bible has a lot to say about this. Romans 5:3-5 says:

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

There’s a progression in this passage that starts with difficulties. When we go through trials, and don’t give up, we learn perseverance and endurance. As we learn to endure unpleasant circumstances we develop character. That character gives us hope. We all need hope. Hope is what gets us through the difficult times. Hope reminds us that things won’t always be this way and that these sufferings have a purpose. As we repeat this process over and over we develop a proven track record that reminds us we’ve successfully come through hard times before and we can do it again. We begin to see ourselves as people who can do hard things, men and women of character. In the end we will not be ashamed but we will glory in all that God is doing in us and through us.

This is the pattern for how we grow in God through the trials we face, if we don’t give up or retreat. And this pattern isn’t just for us, but also for our children. Keeping this pattern in mind can help us when making decisions about the things we will allow in our children’s lives. It can give us hope that even the bad things we can’t control that happen to them serve a greater purpose when we trust God.

Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way as I’ve tried to partner with God in developing resilience and steadfastness in the hearts of my children.

The best lesson is a good example

The life of the Apostle Paul embodies what a life of resiliency looks like. In his pursuit to obey God, Paul faced many difficulties. He lists some of them in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27. He received five lashes with a whip, three beatings with a rod, was stoned and left for dead, shipwrecked, suffered hunger, thirst and nakedness, all in the pursuit of obeying God’s call on His life. But he always got back up and continued to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere and to anyone who would listen. He was unstoppable. He didn’t cower to fear and intimidation. He didn’t give into discouragement. He got back up and kept going. He didn’t lose faith.

Paul told those in Corinth to “be imitators of me, just as I imitate Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)

As parents we are the first and most important example to our children of what a resilient person looks like. As we live a faithful life, enduring hardship like “a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3) we are giving our children (and others) a living, breathing example of resilience. Our example gives them hope that enduring to the end is possible. As you become the kind of Christian you want your child to become, your example is setting the groundwork in their lives for God to build upon.

Don’t underestimate the importance of being a good example to your children.

Don’t put your fears on your children

Many of us have experienced traumatic events in our childhood, things we would do anything to save our children from. And as a parent that’s part of our job description, protecting our children from people and situations that would cause them harm.

But sometimes in our pursuit to protect them, we put our own fears on them, our fears based on our own life experiences, not theirs.

If we put our fears on them, we will save them from things they don’t need to be saved from. And we will stunt their growth. If we save them from every potentially awkward or uncomfortable situation we will prevent them from developing the copping strategies for dealing with those kinds of situations.

Don’t rescue your child from all hardships

In trying to protect them, we can end up shielding them from the real world, preventing them from growing according to God’s pattern of suffering/trials, perseverance/endurance, character and hope. If we take away all the difficulties we take away the catalyst for growth.

We must allow our children to endure difficult things, even things we have the ability to rescue them from. If we always rescue them, we are sending them the message that they can’t handle hard things, that they need rescuing. And if they are never allowed to experience difficult things, they won’t develop the skill set to handle them.

Instead we need to teach our children they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them. We want them to be bold as a lion. We want them to push forward, not cower at the first sign of opposition.

This starts with walking with them through hard situations, not removing them from them.

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting you allow your child to go into potentially dangerous situations or allow others to harm your child without helping them. As a parent we have the responsibility to protect them from harm. But there are many situations that are difficult and frustrating and we would rather our children not face them because those things aren’t just hard on our children but on us too. They must learn they can and must face hard things, and we must learn that also.

Allow your child be make age appropriate decisions

As our children grow they should become more and more responsible for their own decisions. The more decisions they make the better they will get at it.

Allowing our children to express their own opinions and make important decisions that affect their lives gives them a strong sense of autonomy and develops their confidence in their own decision making abilities.

I know this can be difficult, especially when you have multiple children and it would be so much easier to just make all the decisions for everyone so things move smoothly. And there are times when that’s necessary. But be mindful of opportunities when you can allow your child to make decisions for themselves.

This is something that can start out very small, and grow with age. Their confidence will grow with them.

Let them experience the consequences of their decisions, both good and bad. That’s how they will learn wisdom. They will learn how the world truly works, not how we wish the world worked.

Kids who have never been given this opportunity will never develop the skill of making tough decisions. It will limit their ability to take care of themselves and lead others. Leaders can’t be afraid of making tough decisions, even if they make a wrong one.

The more decisions we make the more wise we become, the sharper our judgment becomes. And we start to trust ourselves when it matters.

Resilient people need that kind of confidence, knowing that even when they make a bad call it’s not the end of the world. Without confidence in our own ability to judge a situation rightly and make the right choice, we can lose hope and give up. We look to others to lead us.

These are just a few of my thoughts about raising resilient kids, some things that helped us. In the coming weeks, I believe I’ll come back to this topic because it’s so important. But I hope these ideas will give you something to ponder and a place to start in your own home.

God Bless!

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