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Helping your children learn to handle challenges in a positive way will enable them to face some of life’s biggest obstacles including anxiety, relocation, divorce, failure, and bullying.
Resilience is key to bouncing back and moving past disappointments; and teaching kids to find the silver lining even in an adverse situation will help them develop important skills.
Daily life typically presents opportunities to nurture coping skills and an optimistic attitude. Below are a few helpful suggestions.
List Your Child’s Coping Skills
List the ways that your children calm themselves down. Every individual handles stress, disappointment, or sadness differently.
Perhaps your daughter calms down when she is reading or coloring, or maybe your son likes to play in his room building a block tower or drawing. Respect those activities as personal coping tools, and by recognizing these traits, it can clue you in that something is wrong. Take time to have a conversation with your child and help him or her work through a situation with gentle guidance.
Show Them Healthy Ways to Handle Big Feelings
If you notice your child struggling to move past overwhelming emotions, help them work through a variety of strategies to determine what works best. Here are some examples:
- Listen to a favorite song
- Read a favorite book together
- Take slow, deep breaths
- Imagine a special place
- Put a puzzle together
- Draw or scribble
- Jog in place
Learning ways to calm down will prevent your child from saying or doing something they later regret in the heat of the moment. Also, realizing that they can calm down on their own will boost their self-esteem.
Schedule Family Meetings
Family meetings create a time where everyone can openly communicate with one another. It teaches listening and communication skills and offers the opportunity to resolve issues together. By working together and setting aside a specific time to reconnect also shows the importance of receiving support from others.
Encourage Them to Talk About Feelings
Make a point of asking your children to tell you about their day. Use specific experiences as a way of getting them to open up. For instance, how did you feel when Cameron did that to you? What happened to make you sad today? Why do you think Sally said that?
Real-life experiences provide good teachable moments for working through feelings. Discussing them on a regular basis helps your children understand that emotions, happy and sad, are a normal part of life.
If your children are around when you are facing an issue that causes disappointment or stress, practice self-control, redirecting your attention to another activity, and calmly sharing feelings. They are watching and learning from you constantly. So observing such an incident will display your coping mechanisms and help them realize that everyone experiences unhappy events.
Thought Starters:
- Understanding Resilience: What comes to mind when you think of the word "resilience," and why do you think it's an important quality to have?
- Coping Mechanisms: Can you think of a time when you felt stressed, disappointed, or sad? How did you cope with those feelings?
- The Power of Family Time: How do you feel when our family has a meeting or spends time talking and sharing experiences together?
Suggested Questions To Ask Your Child:
- What do you think it means to handle challenges in a positive way?
This question prompts the child to reflect on their understanding of dealing with challenges positively, encouraging them to express their thoughts and ideas.
- Can you share an example of a time when you faced a challenge and tried to find a positive aspect in it?
By asking for a specific example, parents can encourage their child to recall and share personal experiences related to finding opportunities in challenges, fostering self-reflection.
- What activities or hobbies help you feel better when you're upset or stressed?
This question aims to uncover the child's coping mechanisms and favorite activities that provide comfort and relief during difficult times, promoting self-awareness.
- Do you think family meetings are a good idea for us? Why or why not?
This question encourages the child to express their thoughts on family meetings, fostering a sense of involvement and responsibility in family decisions.
- How do you feel when we talk about our feelings and experiences as a family?
By exploring the child's emotions and reactions to family discussions, parents can gauge the child's comfort level and encourage open communication within the family.
- What do you think you can learn from observing how Mom/Dad handle challenges or disappointments?
This question encourages the child to reflect on the potential lessons they can learn from observing their parents' behavior during challenging situations, promoting awareness and learning.
