Childhoods of positive, optimistic and hopeful adults
Psychological resilience, in its simplest definition, means being strong enough to cope with the difficulties we face in life. There are many factors that affect how we deal with any challenge. Overcoming a crisis is often like getting back up after falling while walking. While some people recover faster in the face of a crisis, some people recover more slowly, are more dispersed, and have difficulty emotionally returning to their pre-crisis state. So what is the main thing that causes this difference?
As an adult, our problem-solving skills, the way we perceive the difficulty we experience, our relationship with ourselves, the extent to which we are aware of our emotions and needs, our psychological flexibility, and our ability to adapt to different situations greatly affect this process. For example, in the event of a setback, there will be significant differences between the emotions we feel and the action we take between saying, "Let's see what we can do?" and saying, "Damn, where did this come from?"
All of these factors are things we can work on and improve as an adult. Research says resilience is a learnable skill! So, what can caregivers do to ensure that children have already acquired this skill when they become adults?
Before moving on to various suggestions regarding this, let's look at the general characteristics of psychologically healthy individuals:
They have a more positive perception and, accordingly, a more positive attitude towards themselves, life and other people.
They tend to view the challenges they face as learning opportunities and experiences rather than failures, and are more motivated to try again or continue after failures
They can rationally evaluate their strengths and areas that need improvement.
They tend to be optimistic and hopeful
They can distinguish emotions and are good at emotional regulation (such as knowing how to calm down in times of anger)
Has satisfying social relationships
When we look at it in this context, of course there are various things we can do while raising children to support them in acquiring these skills. The most important of these is the underlying basis of all these skills; emotional awareness and emotion regulation. For this reason, it is very important to teach children from a very young age to distinguish the emotions felt in different situations. For example, disappointment and sadness are different emotions. Most of the time, we describe difficult emotions as 'I feel bad' and pleasant emotions as 'I'm happy, I feel good'. However, the range of emotions is similar to a color chart. Just as there are many different emotions we can feel, these emotions also have tones within themselves, just like the tones of colours.
Starting from infancy, the more different emotions we mirror the child's emotional expressions in different situations - which are mostly expressed by the child with two basic reactions, especially in early childhood: crying and laughing / being joyful - the more diverse emotions the child learns. It develops an awareness that different emotions can be felt in different situations. For example, you can mirror a child who is crying when he sees that the toy is finished at the store where you go to buy a toy he really wants, by saying, "You look very disappointed, I know you came with great excitement just for that toy." In this case, the child will say, 'This uncomfortable thing I am experiencing is called disappointment!' With frequent repetitions in the face of large and small events encountered in daily life, you will learn what disappointment feels like and will be able to distinguish it from other difficult emotions. The most basic feature of these mirrorings is that they help with emotional awareness and being able to move through difficult emotions. The child's emotional range will develop with these mirrorings, and in the future he will begin to express his own emotions using this range. A child who sees that he or she has a parent who can express his or her feelings and makes room for them will have less need for crying fits and tantrums in the face of stressful situations. This means that the foundation for the development of the skill we call emotional regulation begins to be laid. Psychologically sound individuals can only manage these crises during crises that cause very difficult emotions by managing their own emotions.
Apart from this, considering the tendency of psychologically healthy individuals to see the difficulties they face as experiences rather than failures, we can say that the childhood period, when we learn by trying many new things, is the best time to acquire this skill.
Encouraging children to try new things, focusing on the process rather than the outcome during these attempts, and giving encouraging but rational feedback about their efforts and the process will provide the first appropriate environment for the development of this skill. After that, what you say to your child after unsuccessful attempts will be what he tells himself when he becomes an adult and experiences any failure. The way children talk to themselves as adults is actually the way their parents talk to them. Therefore, in a game where he tried but failed, 'You try so hard.', 'Do you want to try again?', 'It's nice that you try again and again without giving up.' 'What did you learn from this try?' 'What do you think you can do differently in the next try?' Giving feedback or asking questions will help develop this skill. In this way, the child will learn to make inferences from the process, to focus on his own process during the trials, to see this as a learning opportunity for the next trials, and most importantly, to continue trying. In addition to all these, process-oriented feedback and mind-expanding questions prevent children from developing a negative perception of their own existence in the face of failures. When these children become adults, they can be more positive, optimistic and self-confident individuals who are more aware of their strengths and aspects that need to be improved.
It's heartening to know that, as adults, we have such a huge impact on the way children perceive life. All the reactions, large and small, given by adults living with children to the difficulties they encounter in their own lives will become the first solutions that children will resort to when they become adults. Based on this, what we tell ourselves in the face of various crises and unsuccessful attempts we encounter in life, how we continue, and our attitude towards life and other people are the basis of raising psychologically strong children. The psychological resilience of adults who come into contact with children is the biggest predictor of children being psychologically resilient individuals.
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