day 9
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to day nine of our 12 day roadmap to parenting, clarity and purpose in 2024. Today, we're diving into the essential task of building resilience in our Children. It's great that we, as the parents, are now prepared for the possible challenges ahead, but we can't neglect the importance of preparing our children as well.
So today we're going to explore strategies for teaching them resilience, problem solving skills, and a growth mindset that will set them up for success for years to come and keep things running smoothly for all members of our household. We're so close to completing our road map and resilience is one of those things you can't afford to leave out of the journey we can and should prepare ourselves to face the expected, but no matter what we do, we're going to have unexpected things pop up in our lives.
And so will our children having resilience. Provides them with the coping skills, the [00:01:00] problem solving skills, the ability to remain positive and come out the other side better. Having grown from what they've experienced, they'll be able to make better decisions in their lives. They'll be able to handle obstacles with ease, be a light in the lives of others and be better prepared to succeed long after they've left our homes as well.
So let's get started. In today's training, you can expect practical strategies and tools for fostering resilience in your children, which will allow you to gain valuable insights into their emotional well being as well. Guidance for how to teach problem solving skills, foster a growth mindset, and create a supportive environment within your family.
And you'll learn practical and achievable resilience building techniques that you can incorporate into your daily routines with your family. Today's free resource is the Resilience Builder Playbook, which is available in all of the same areas that it has been. [00:02:00] Covenant collections dot com slash 2024.
You can find it in the common confident club membership that we're building up and we're putting this entire challenge in there as well. So that everything's in an easy to access location or over in the Christian parenting community, Facebook group. And I'm not going to fix that on the slide right there, so I'm sorry.
I see it. I notice it. I apologize. There's two extremes that parents tend to struggle with when it comes to building resilience in their children. And I want to just briefly touch on them before we get too far into this. The first is trying to overprotect our children from any of the things that would actually teach them resilience naturally.
Of course we want to protect them, and we should, but there are a lot of things that within a controlled environment, normal life challenges, they need to experience these things. They don't need us to excuse and hide and lie and [00:03:00] circumvent to keep them from ever seeing anything other than the bright side all of their lives.
Because then what happens to them when they leave your home and they're painfully unprepared for real life? Sometimes with the best of intentions, we can actually hinder the people that we love. So just be mindful of that, and the second thing is parents who go too far in the opposite direction and think they need to expose their children to more hardships than are natural in order to prepare them for the real world.
This is also incorrect. Life will give us plenty of opportunities all on its own. God will give us exactly the things that we need to learn from, the things that will shape us and grow us in the way that he needs us to be shaped and be grown. When I say we're going to teach our children resilience, I mean we're going to use our actual, real lives exactly as they are.
While still protecting our children to teach them and guide them in building a resilience [00:04:00] toolbox with essential problem solving and coping skills. And of course, most importantly to me, a growth mindset. So what does resilience even mean? It's more than just a passive ability to carry on despite facing difficulties.
It's a true strength that grows from the process of facing and coming out the other side of those difficulties, feeling more capable, feeling more equipped. It's the ability to not just bounce back from challenges, but use those challenges to evolve and thrive moving forward. It's a real skill set that allows us to navigate life's complexities with courage and adaptability and a positive outlook on life.
It's a strength that works in conjunction with our faith. If we lean solely on our own strength, we will often feel helpless and [00:05:00] underprepared. But since resilience is a skill, again, it is something that we can learn and it is something that we can build upon. Resilience is kind of like a mental gym where you build and strengthen your cognitive and emotional muscles.
When we're faced with challenges, we learn to navigate Complex things make decisions under pressure and adapt to new circumstances. These experiences will cultivate mental agility and fortitude and enable us to approach future obstacles with more confidence and a problem solving mindset. Resilience is the training ground where mental strength is developed and it provides us the tools that we need to confront life.
With a strong and resourceful attitude the journey of resilience is also Intimately connected with our emotional well being as your child [00:06:00] encounters and overcomes challenges in their lives They're going to develop an understanding of their own emotions Resilience teaches them to acknowledge and express their feelings which strengthens their emotional intelligence This emotional fluency will equip them to navigate relationships, handle stress, and maintain a positive outlook even when they're facing adversity and difficult times.
By embracing resilience, your child will not only learn to weather those emotional and mental storms, but also have the tools in their toolkit to thrive. Resilience is also the foundation where healthy self esteem is built. When we navigate challenges and setbacks successfully, we develop a sense of accomplishment and self worth.
Resilience teaches us that setbacks are not personal failures. They're just opportunities for growth. This shift contributes to a positive self [00:07:00] image and the ability to overcome obstacles instills confidence and self assurance, reinforcing the belief to our children that they do have the capacity to handle whatever comes their way.
So, in nurturing resilience, you're laying the groundwork for a positive self esteem that empowers your child to face the world with greater confidence and self respect. So, now that we understand what resilience is and why it matters. We can learn strategies for actually building resilience, problem solving skills, and a growth mindset in our children.
But I want to take a moment and just say that none of these strategies are going to require that we introduce pain and challenges to our child. There's so many more real life examples than we realize that don't have to be at a high significant degree. To you, they just feel like normal. You gave your friend advice who's going through a hard time.
Um, [00:08:00] a pet passed away that was at your parents house that you grew up with. These are things that to you just seem like yes, these are the steps I took. You don't think about it as resilience, problem solving skills and growth mindset because they're habits to you. They're normal to you. But these are skills that our children haven't yet had to put into practice and build up as habits to themselves.
So, when you do these things, try to just incorporate them in. Real life examples. This is what I did. This is the strategy that I used. This is how it worked. This is what I learned. This is how I'm looking at the situation now versus how I was looking at the situation at the beginning. Your children are going to learn from you and then when they face challenges, they're going to remember.
Those strategies that you shared with them. So this doesn't require that you wait for something very challenging to happen, or that you introduce challenges in order to make them happen. Just do real life incorporation of things that you're [00:09:00] already dealing with that you're already facing or things that your children bring to you as well so that you can walk them through these things.
And help them become habits to your Children to build resilience. We're going to encourage positive self talk. It's simple, but it's strong. Teach your Children to replace negative thoughts with positive affirmations. When a negative comment comes out in your presence. Encourage a positive reframe, and I cannot express enough the importance of modeling that for them in the way that you speak as well.
It doesn't mean we'll ever rid ourselves of those initial negative thoughts. It just means that the habit and the norm in our mind will be automatically readjusting it to a positive. So, also help them recognize their strengths and remember their past successes, their past wins. When you notice them handle something really well, give positive [00:10:00] reinforcement, acknowledge it, build up their awareness of their strengths.
And when they start to struggle, remind them of all those times they've already handled things really well and how to win. That empowers them and encourages them that they can handle whatever they're facing right now as well. Create a safe space for them to express their feelings without judgment or fear of correction or criticism.
Encourage healthy outlets for expressing and processing their emotions. Teach healthy coping mechanisms like deep breathing and mindfulness. Demonstrate how to handle stressful situations and challenges in a more constructive way. A lot of times we tell our children they're handling something wrong. If they get angry, they scream, they throw something, they act out in whatever negative way that they do.
But do you share with them how to handle that in a more constructive way? Do you model for them how to handle that in a more [00:11:00] constructive way? Shift the perspective on their failures by emphasizing the lessons that they learned from the situation. Help them reframe failures as temporary, overcomable circumstances.
When it's possible and when it's age appropriate, provide autonomy to allow a sense of control. There's a healthy way to do this that doesn't involve giving them all decision making power, and it doesn't hinder your ability to lead. But it allows them the ability to get comfortable making choices on their own and learning from their choices So that they can make better choices in the future.
To teach problem solving we're going to encourage critical thinking by asking open ended questions regularly and responding curiously when we're communicating with them. Have thoughtful discussions that require them to think and dig deeper. Allow them to face age appropriate problems and come up with [00:12:00] independent solutions instead of offering the solution, encourage them to think creatively and explore different solutions for themselves collaborate family problem solving by fostering teamwork and cooperation.
When you face family challenges. Let them learn that their perspective matters and is valuable even to the adults in the family because this will give them practice and confidence in their problem solving skills. Involve your children in making decisions and inform them of consequences of different choices to help them understand and enhance those decision making skills.
You can also use games and puzzles, brain teasers, family activities and challenges, books, videos. online resources to make learning more enjoyable and get practice with their problem solving skills. For building and enhancing a growth mindset, make sure you don't only praise [00:13:00] results. Also, praise the effort and the hard work.
Making a strong effort and trying your best to accomplish something is actually the skill that leads to success. So that's the skill that you want to reinforce. Encourage a love for learning and a curiosity driven approach to facing new things. There's a joy in exploring and acquiring new skills.
Emphasize that mistakes are a very natural part of the learning process and encourage resilience in the face of setbacks and motivation to try again. Teach them manageable, achievable goals and celebrating progress at each step. Depending on their age, you might be able to walk them through the whole SMART goals process.
And last, promote the power of yet. It's not, I can't do this. It's just, I haven't mastered this skill yet. These strategies are going to give your children everything they need [00:14:00] to face their challenges confident, equipped, and fully capable. With your support and with an awareness that our ultimate source of strength comes from God for today's giveaway entry I'm just gonna go back to prior days homework post to choose winners Because we're nine days in here and you've put in a lot of work at this point So make sure to answer those if you haven't and put any questions that may be on your mind in the Q& A post Which is also an entry Go to covenantcollections.
com slash club to learn more about the membership that you'll receive as a giveaway winner, and you get that for an entire year with a VIP upgrade. So that homework, again, is over in the free Facebook group, the Christian Parenting Community. For everyone else who's not interested in participating in the giveaways, but is interested in the Calm and Confident Club, remember that if you get signed up prior to the doors officially opening on December 15th, you'll get a [00:15:00] complimentary upgrade on the back end to VIP, which comes with group coaching.
Digital coaching and one to one coaching opportunities in addition to everything else inside of the Common Confident Club. So I'll see y'all tomorrow where we'll be one step closer to full clarity and purpose in our parenting journey for 2024. And we'll be talking about self care.