How Resilient Are Your Children? (Part 1)

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when the rising generation develops resilience in their early years. Life is full of trials for all of us because that is part of God’s plan for the eternal happiness of his children. He knows that trials give us opportunities to gain experience and develop in ways that might not be possible without those particular adversities. Therefore, He sometimes allows terrible things to happen to good people. We are tested and tried to prove our willingness to obey God’s commandments. What may be an extremely difficult test for one individual would be much easier for another person.

Human beings are born into a multitude of circumstances. Some people are born into poverty, while others are born into affluence. Some are born into loving families, while others are born into abusive or neglectful homes. No matter where we are born or the circumstances in which we live, we all have some combination of risk factors and protective factors.

A risk factor is any influence that increases the odds of harm, contributes to a more serious state, or maintains a problem condition. Risk factors include poverty, divorced parents, addiction, low intelligence, neglect, abuse of any kind, and living in dangerous neighborhoods. Since life is more difficult as the number of risk factors increases, the goal of parents and other adults should be to reduce the amount of risk to children and youth as much as possible.

Protective factors are the opposite of risk factors. Protective factors are internal as well as external resources that promote positive developmental outcomes and help children prevail over adversity. Both internal and external protective factors modify risk. Internal protective factors include a positive and cheerful attitude, being easy going, friendliness, good work ethic, and other positive personal attributes. External protective factors are in the environment where the child lives, and they include living in a safe neighborhood, attending a good school, living with both biological, married parents, having a loving extended family, enough money in the family to meet needs, living in freedom, and other such positive features.

A child may live in poverty, but he may also be living with his two biological, married parents in a loving family situation. His living situation would help to modify the effects of poverty.

Statistics show that most children who live in poverty do not do well academically. However, there are some children living in poverty who excel academically. Such children are resilient.

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson is one well-known example of a boy who grew up in poverty, in a single home, and a mother who could not read. Mrs. Carson did not want her sons watching television all day or joining gangs, so she insisted that they read two books each week and write a book report about each book. They would give their book reports to their mother, and she would pretend to read them. She even asked questions about the books that they read.

Mrs. Carson’s two sons did not know until much later that their mother could not read. Even though her sons faced numerous risk factors, they had a mother who was crazy about them and wanted her boys to have a good life. Her efforts provided enough protective factors that her sons developed personal motivation to excel in school and in life.

The boys were intelligent enough to learn to read and to write. As they continued to read books and to write book reports for their mother, their belief in their abilities grew, and they developed positive attitudes about school. In addition, they developed resilience to escape poverty, membership in gangs, and early death.

Parents and other adults involved with the rising generation can help them to develop resilience by creating and using protective factors and assets as well as decreasing the amount of risk in their lives. Studies show that having one adult in a child’s life that is crazy about the child can help the child to become resilient. That adult can be a parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, neighbor, or any number of other adults influencing children and youth.

Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters taught with a song a sure way to build resilience in the rising generation: “You’ve got to c-cent-tchu-ate the positive, Eliminate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative, Don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.” Accentuate the positive, don’t worry about the negative.” - Search (bing.com)

The song continues with counsel to “spread joy up to the maximum, Bring gloom down to the minimum, Have faith or pandemonium Liable to walk upon the scene.” The song also uses the experiences of Jonah in the whale and Noah in the ark as examples of people who accentuated the positive when “when everything looked so dark.”

By using positive words and tones with the rising generation, we can motivate them to rise to higher levels. We should never call them derogatory names or suggest that they are lazy or have other negative attributes. We should increase the amount of positivity in our words and actions and decrease negativity as much as humanly possible.

All parents should strive to become the adult in their child’s life that is absolutely crazy them. Such children are motivated to try harder because they know that someone thinks that they can do better. By motivating the rising generation to reach higher, we can strengthen our families, communities, states, and nations.