This is the first of a series of blogs aimed to help parents know how to help their children and teens become more resilient. Resilience is defined as the process of adapting to adversity, trauma, or other significant stressors well. It is the ability to “bounce back” from life’s challenges. Dr. Kenneth Ginsberg in his book Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings, he outlines 7 qualities that help kids be more resilient to the challenges and stressors that they face.
The first “C” of resilience is Competence. He defines it as the ability to know how to handle situations effectively. Not a vague feeling like, “I can do this.” It is acquired through actual experience. First, a person must develop a set of skills that allows him or her to trust his or her judgment and then make responsible decisions.
Competence is attained through 3 overlapping elements: Knowledge, Skills, & Attitude. Consistently demonstrating the ability to overcome challenging tasks build’s competence. Although, competence is domain specific, meaning that a person can gain competence in one area, but have lower belief in his or her abilities in another domain.
Tips for Parents to Build Competence in their Children
- Allow for Unstructured Free Play– when children and teens are given space to self-direct what they are most interested in, they can discover some of their natural preferences and what they find joy in doing.
- Recognize Your Kid’s Strengths– notice and tell you kids what they are doing well or what character strengths and virtues you can see in them. You can have them take the free Character Strengths and Virtues Survey here to learn more about specific gifts that they possess.
- Provide Educational, Social, and Stress Reducing Opportunities– evaluate if your children have sufficient skills in these areas and help them increase their beliefs in their educational, social, and stress reducing abilities.
