Being a parent is challenging! Raising happy, confident, well-adjusted kids can be even more challenging! Parenting guru Michael Grose gives some great no- nonsense parenting advice that we stand behind at Harbor Family Chiropractic.
DEVELOP YOUR CHILD’S RESILIENCE AND COPING SKILLS
“Resilience is important for kids to help them cope with life’s hardships, frustrations and difficulties (HFD’s),” says Grose. “Developmental HFD’s are those children routinely experience including loss, rejection, change, disappointment, failure, conflict and fear. Dealing with these is a developmental imperative and helps to build coping skills for the future.”
“One way to build coping skills is to not to over protect your child,” he says “Life happens and things don’t always go our way. It’s important that kids learn this and learn how to keep their confidence up. Parents can support their kids by focusing on how they’re feeling and letting them know its okay to feel this way. Then they should help them manage it, deal with it and move on.”
How to promote resilience in children:
* Remind your kids they don’t always get what they want.
* Be attentive to their situation and needs.
* Work hard to keep their confidence up and help them get on with life.
* Give your child plenty of opportunities to solve their own problems. Children will only develop their inner resources when given the opportunity to develop their resourcefulness.
* Expect your child to be helpful at home from a young age without being paid. That’s how they learn to be useful.
* Make sure your expectations for success are positive, realistic and based on child’s interests and aptitudes rather than on adult wishes.
* Normalize the HFD situations so they understand that others experience similar situations.
* Be a good role model by being resilient adult rather than an adult who’s continually stressed and has no real life outside from children and work. Begin a hobby is a good place to start if you feel that life is all work (and kids) and no fun.
