In these busy, hectic days we take our kids to sports practice, games, music lessons, tuition classes and other activities to provide our children with the best opportunities for outward success. But what if we’re missing the chance to teach them what truly matters most? In this article, we will explore practical ways for parents to build a legacy of psychological resilience in their children and to develop a conducive environment at home for them to talk about their doubts, insecurities and desires without the fear of reprisal.
Most parents are well-intentioned with their children. But sometimes, parents unknowingly project their own fears, judgements and moral opinions of past experiences. This can unintentionally create emotional separation between the parent and child. As parents, we should instead strive to foster psychological safety, create healthy boundaries and provide guidance from the wisdom of our own experiences. In addition, it is imperative that we give our children the trust to explore their own individual boundaries and the permission to be who they are.
Every child deserves an education that guarantees a safe passage to learn, especially in the comfort of their own individual make-up. It’s never been more important to provide the platform to help our children develop the skills and confidence to become self-directed learners, creators and problem-solvers; and it all starts with a safe place to learn. A supportive and inclusive culture at home is key to enhance psychological safety in your child. When children feel safe, it consequently leads to better learning and performance outcomes. An exploratory study in the field of child psychology found that children under consistently high evaluative pressure at home were less likely to experiment in their lives, especially when formative values and instrumental rewards were inconsistent in supporting experimentation.
It’s especially difficult to see our children suffer, and the easiest thing to do with uncomfortable feelings is to tell someone to forget them and just move pass it. But that inevitably teaches children to not trust their own feelings. They judge themselves because they constantly feel they shouldn’t have the thoughts that they do and that something is essentially wrong with them. You can help your child work through a troubling issue while also acknowledging their experience as something that is true and real to them. Don’t dismiss their feelings, thinking it will simply make your child more resilient by doing so. This only increases emotional separation between you and your child. It’s impossible to create a perfect environment for our children all the time. Nonetheless, there are still useful ways in which we can foster an environment for our children at home that cultivates learning, experimentation and openness.
1) Help them identify with some of your own personal failures and let them know it’s okay to fail. As humans, we naturally empathize more deeply with others through our vulnerabilities, honesty and imperfections. So much of vulnerability is admitting that we don’t always succeed and that we aren’t perfect and thus inviting others into our lives to assist us. Not granting children the psychological space to fail can lead to helplessness, disappointment, anxiety and a lack of coping skills. Send your children the message that we learn from mistakes by authentically sharing some of your own personal experiences.
2) Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. The practice of reframing life's challenges as learning problems, not objective problems that need to be solved can provide a simple, yet powerful shift in your child's perspective. Create an environment at home that is process-driven as opposed to being objective-driven. This can include accomplishing daily school work without intrinsically seeking to reach the end of the task all the time.
Some parents often assume that teachers play a greater role in the social and academic development of children. Ostensibly, this mindset results in the outsourcing of their child’s psychological resilience to some other. Teachers are the guiding lights and protect children from undesirable incidents at school, but the emotional support that they get from their parents at home is the ultimate security children innately need.
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