Hints for Creating Resilient Families

Tips from Andrew Fuller, www.andrewfuller.com

Resilience is the happy knack of being able to bungee jump through life. When the inevitable pitfalls and setbacks of life occur, it is as if you have an elasticised rope around your middle that helps you to bounce back from hard times.

Promote Belonging

The sense of belonging we have is the strongest antidote we know of for self-harm, depression and drug abuse and it’s built on our sense of belonging. Children are most resilient when they have three types of belonging: 1. A sense of being part of a family 2. Having different friendships to belong to 3. Having an adult outside their family who connects with them.

Have some mooch time

We live in a world that suffers from attention deficit disorder. We rush children from activity to activity, from lesson to lesson and from one organised event to another. Then we wonder why, when there is a lull that they say” I’m bored”. Be a counter-revolutionary. Find some time each week just to be at home without anything structured happening. Quiet times allow children to develop creativity and ingenuity.

It is clear who is in charge

Families do not work well as democracies. In fact, they seem to work best as benevolent dictatorships in which the parent or parents consult a lot with their children but at the end of the day, the parent has the final say. Some parents fear that if they take charge that they will lose the friendship of their children, but often the reverse is true. In families where parents fail to take their own role seriously, children may feel that to express their independence they need to engage in risk taking behaviour and avoid responsibility. Authoritative parenting allows children to feel safe, have clear boundaries and flourish.

Know how to Argue

Families that work well know how to argue. It seems strange to say this because we all have the sense those families that work well don't have conflicts. The family is really where we learn to resolve disputes fairly. The way that parents teach children to resolve differences of opinion with their brothers and sisters provides the basis for sharing, negotiating and problem solving in the world beyond the family. While differences of opinion should be allowed to be expressed, children also need to learn that they will not be able to win at all costs.