“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy…no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus

We are living through this disquieting time together. Should we expose ourselves all day to the 24-hour news cycle, then panic and paralysis will likely be our bedfellows. How can we stay current, while also role modeling for our children an energized and growth-mindset approach to these challenging times? How can we grow our children’s resilience, and our own?

As we know, a key predictor of future well-being and success is our levels of “grit” and resilience: our sustained efforts toward goals and a vision, that includes struggle and the capacity to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back to the business of pursuing our goals and vision. To be “gritty” and resilient requires a healthy degree of realistic optimism.

To quote from Harvard Business Review, “Realistic optimists…believe they will succeed, but also believe they have to make success happen — through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and choosing the right strategies. They recognize the need for giving serious thought to how they will deal with obstacles. This preparation only increases their confidence in their own ability to get things done.”

We can help our children grow their resilience by guiding them toward building their “realistic optimism muscles” at home.

Here are valuable materials for your toolkit:

  1. Create a family “Joy Journal”: After dinner or before bedtime, reflect together on good moments from the day–moments of laughter, engagement, kindness, simple pleasures–and record some of these. This habit helps train our brains away from the hardwired negativity bias and strengthens our happiness and optimism muscles.
  2. Encourage your children to have conversations and/or record interviews (video conferencing or over the phone) with relatives or friends–or even you–who have faced significant challenges and gone on to flourish.
  3. Give your children a purpose each day that involves tasks and projects they can complete or on which they can make daily progress.
  4. Point out resilience in nature: the way grass bounces back from heavy rain, how birds patiently seek food in local marshes, how trees and plants can sprout up through cracks in concrete.
  5. In your downtime together, read books and/or watch movies about fictional or historical figures who successfully overcome obstacles. 
  6. When facing a multi-step or especially challenging problem, help your child figure out the most difficult part of the problem they are working on. Coach them in breaking this down into steps that are easier to tackle. This approach also helps them see what they can control, what is out of their control, and areas they are already strong in and areas in their growth that need more attention.
  7. Show your children what resilience looks like by sharing with them how you set goals and overcome setbacks. And too, as Angela Duckworth (one of the key researchers of resilience) noted,

“Being gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit.” – Angela Duckworth

Remember the oxygen mask airline metaphor: be sure you are taking care of yourself, so you have the energy needed to sustain an energized, optimistic presence for your children.  One of my main go-to sources of self-nourishment is poetry. Here is my companion for times like these:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

– Wendell Berry