We all want the children we love to be able to face hard times and cope with them successfully. The ability to “bounce back” from life’s challenges can be part of a child’s naturally wired temperament. However, other kids may need help learning how to develop their resilience. Raising this child or young adult in your home creates an opportunity to model resilience for them – or develop it together if you also need a boost in your skills.
What Makes a Resilient Family?
Building your own and your family’s resilience will create a healthier and more supportive home for everyone who lives there. This grandchild or nephew or cousin who has joined your home after a season of loss or chaos likely needs your help to identify the impacts they’ve experienced and what resilience looks like for them.
Research has shown that a kinship caregiver’s resilience can help heal the negative impacts of the stress or trauma children experience. Your efforts to build a resilient family can buffer their mental, emotional, and even physical health.
Here are the pillars of a resilient family:
Pillar #1: Positive protective factors
Just like children can experience adverse childhood experiences (or ACEs), they can also experience positive childhood experiences. These are healthy, pleasant experiences that can ease stress and buffer them from the impacts of the challenges they’ve faced. Positive childhood experiences help all of you become more resilient.
Here are four types of positive childhood experiences to build into your family’s rhythms:
- Relationships – Surround your family with safe, supportive relationships with other family members, friends, and close community members. This network of support can reduce the risks of depression and poor mental health.
- Environment – You all need a safe, stable place to live, learn, rest, work, and play. Having a safe, nurturing place to call home will reduce the risks for poor physical and mental health now and as the kids become adults.
- Connections – When you develop connections in your community, you and your family can boost your sense of belonging and connectedness. Whether it’s regular church attendance, community volunteering opportunities, or supporting an important cause in your circles, you will all benefit. Kids need to feel connected to their communities and be part of something bigger than themselves. Plus, connecting with your community means additional opportunities to build their ties to your tribal group’s cultural customs and traditions. You and the children will feel a boost in confidence about and security in your community.
- Emotional Growth – A resilient family offers opportunities for all members to grow through difficult events and complex emotions. When you face these challenges together, you can develop improved skills of self- and others-awareness. You will also learn emotional regulation, empathy, and social norms that can set the kids up for success as they grow.
Pillar #2: A Strong and Supportive Community
We often hear that “it takes a village” to raise a child. We know that your family is proof of that – you’ve stepped in to support your family by raising this child! A strong, supportive community around a struggling family builds the resilience of the family who is challenged. But it also builds the skills of those stepping into the need!
However, you should also consider a broader view of your community. Do you have fulfilling, supporting connections at this child’s school? Are you part of a faith community or tribal community network? Relationships in these spaces can offer emotional support, practical assistance, and resources that can help you thrive together.
Finally, knowing when to ask your community for help is also a mark of resilience. When you reach out for the help that is available, for the kids you are raising, for yourself, and for your other adult family members, you normalize that seeking help is a sign of strength. You can boost a child’s feelings of trust in your care when you show them it’s okay to need and get help.
Pillar #3: Clear and Active Communication
Families with clear communication improve their ability to meet challenges and solve problems they encounter. You can encourage your family to express their emotions freely and safely to help them build these skills. Most of us find it difficult to trust people who hide their emotions because you never know what’s happening with them. This skill is crucial for relationships between adults and between adults and children in your home. You will build trust and a sense of confidence with the kids, which builds resilience.
Consider scheduling regular family meetings to talk through events, feelings, or experiences your family faces. It can be as simple as sharing “roses and thorns” of the week every Sunday night at dinner.
Pillar #4: Engagement with Each Other
Create family traditions or rituals that allow you to spend time together, like regular family dinners or game nights. Happy memories of family time can create a stable emotional foundation for children and a more profound sense of belonging for everyone.
These experiences don’t have to be expensive or complicated. In fact, it’s less about the activity itself and more about doing the activity together. Of course, your efforts will be far more effective if everyone can enjoy the activity.
Pillar #5: Proactive Problem Solving
The reality is that every family faces challenges. It’s the human condition and raising this child is your family’s reality right now. But just as real is the fact that all families have strengths and vulnerabilities. Do you know what your family’s strengths and weaknesses are? Deciding now how to manage future challenges together will tell the kids that you are prepared, you will be present when they face challenges, and you can be trusted. That sense of safety builds resilience.
Here are a few ideas for how to plan for problem solving together:
- Write down a couple examples of difficulties your family has already overcome. Then, write down how you did it. Was it loyalty? Teamwork? Listening skills? Determination? What strengths made the difference?
- Next, write down an example of a previous experience where your family’s coping abilities weren’t very positive. Brainstorm how you can manage a similar situation better the next time you face it.
- Finally, list some of your family’s individual and collective strengths. How could those be modified as your family continues to grow and change?
This exercise makes it easier to remember successful strategies during times of stress and helps identify the areas that need attention.
You Will All Win When You Learn Resilience!
Just like some people are naturally more resilient than others, some families will be naturally more resilient. However, the key to remember is that every family can learn more or better skills for building resilience – both as individuals and as a family!
Intentionally focusing on learning resilience, even when it feels forced or hokey, has long-lasting impacts. You are teaching your relative child life skills that will enrich and strengthen them long after this child is grown.