Helping Our Kids Cope with Life's Obstacles

Summit Upper School counselor Devon Davis and Lower School counselor Bekah Sidden teamed up recently to present “Raising Resilient Children: Helping Our Kids Achieve Their Goals in the Face of Life’s Obstacles.” They spoke as part of Summit’s Inspiring Learning Series. Devon and Bekah’s guest post below is based on that presentation. Just click here for the slide show, speaking notes and support materials.

What, me worry?

Parents, by definition, worry. Am I doing too much? Can my child handle that situation without me? How can I raise my child to weather the ups and downs of life? While the often-wished-for parent manual has yet to be written, there are steps parents can take to raise resilient children.

Resilience colors every aspect of life. It is the capacity to cope competently with basic life challenges. Resilient children:

• Have realistic expectations and feel hopeful

• Capitalize on their strengths without ignoring their vulnerabilities

• Learn to focus on what they can control

• Are comfortable seeking assistance as they try to improve

Consider, then, how we interact with our children. To nurture resilience, we need to pay attention to how we communicate with our children about their ability to cope and feel competent in their world. That means pointing out the steps you saw them take in preparing for the test (“Wow, I noticed the cue cards you made and the extra hours you spent getting ready for the test”) rather than saying how brilliant they are. Or praising their improved passing and dribbling skills instead of telling them they are a world class soccer player. It's about helping our children to embrace challenges as opportunities to grow their intelligence and build their skills.

In their books, Raising Resilient Children and Nurturing Resilience in Our Children, Sam Goldstein and Robert Brooks point to several factors that greatly influence resilience. These factors include empathy, communication, parental love and acceptance, competence, learning from mistakes, discipline, responsibility and social conscience. A little reflection on interactions with children should help determine what is (and isn’t) working to ensure that you’re creating an environment that nurtures resilience. What message am I sending? How similar is the message I’m sending to what I actually want to teach my child? Am I modeling the behaviors (and attitudes) I want my child to adopt?

From a practical perspective, you can provide tools that build resilience in your child.

• Children need an island of competence. This is where your child’s strengths reside, and is a jumping off place for growth, and a safe place to retreat to when things don’t go well.

• Children need at least one charismatic adult in their lives. This is a person who loves them unconditionally, believes in them, and accepts them for who they are.

• Model, model, model. Children can’t be resilient if they don’t see you being resilient. How you react to your setbacks speaks volumes.

Most of all, remember that raising children is a unique process. We don’t have a checklist for parenting that will work for every child. That said, we do know that specific behaviors have proven to be helpful as we support our children in coping with life's obstacles. As Goldstein and Brooks so eloquently point out, love is a process. Not a product.

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Making the Most of Parent - Teacher Conferences

At this time of year, Summit teachers—and many teachers around the country—are preparing for parent-teacher conferences. Below are some principles and tips that parents and teachers may want to keep in mind:

Principles for Parents and Teachers in Preparing for Parent-Teacher Conferences

1. Conferences represent one important part of the parent-school partnership. That means conferences are part of a larger whole—an ongoing dialogue, collaboration and partnership between parents and teachers. And that partnership is premised on this question:

How do parents and teachers build relationships that enable us to serve as allies on behalf of the development and well-being of our children?

2. Parents and teachers are on the same team. Both are committed to serving the best interests of children. Nothing, then, is larger than our collective commitment to those children. That collective commitment is our bond—and a source of both courage and trust.

3. Entering a parent-teacher conference can produce a measure of anxiety in parents and teachers alike. Parents may worry about everything from learning in detail of their child’s poor academic performance to having their child-rearing mistakes on display through their child’s behavior (often in ways that they aren’t aware of) and being critiqued by the teacher. And teachers may worry about everything from being seen by parents through the sometimes selective (even distorting) eyes of their students to being intimidated by a precious few parents. It’s worth thinking about this element of anxiety before entering the conference and making a conscious effort to place your “partner” at ease. We owe this to our children.

4. Parents possess unique and important insights into their child as a person and as a learner. These insights are helpful to teachers as they provide appropriate support and challenge for each child. Parents and teachers alike need to acknowledge, leverage and even celebrate these insights.

5. Teachers possess unique and important insights into each student as a person and as a learner. As independent school psychologist and author Michael Thompson has written, “As children grow and become more complex, they do not reveal all facets of their personality to their parents. When they become adolescents, they may intentionally hide aspects of themselves from their family. As a parent, when you go to talk about your child with the teacher, you may be aware that there are things that you do not know about your child. However, for the most part you do not know what you do not know—and you have no idea what your child’s teacher knows that you don’t!” This brings us back to point #3 above—and takes us to point #6 below.

6. Minimize surprises at the conference. Since conferences are just one part—albeit a significant part—of the parent-school partnership, it is important not to saddle the conference with more weight than it can bear. That is, whenever possible, parents and teachers should be leveraging their partnership (including by communicating) on a regular basis so that major surprises—particularly jarring news—have been discussed beforehand.

7. Recognize that children learn differently, develop (cognitively, socially, physically, emotionally) at different rates, refine their skills at different times, have different interests, and demonstrate different talents and abilities. No two children are the same. Similarly, as educators we expect to see varying strengths and challenges within each child. Children are wonderful works-in-progress. And we need to give them the space to learn and grow—including by accepting their unique challenge areas as well as their unique strengths.

8. By necessity, conference sessions are limited in length. Honoring the time frame is crucial. Teachers need to re-collect themselves and their thoughts before moving into the next session. Waiting parents deserve their allotted time with the teacher. Parents and teachers, then, need to arrive on time and end the conference on time. If you find the session is too brief to fully address all thoughts and questions, then a follow-up meeting can be scheduled.

Tips for Parents in Preparing for Parent-Teacher Conferences
Prior to the conference, I encourage parents to think about (and, where appropriate, come prepared to talk about) the following:

· What do you know about your child that you want the teacher(s) to understand?

· What aspects of your child’s experiences at school this year have you noticed? What do you want to know more about? What would you like to comment on with the teacher?

· What have you seen/do you see as strengths of your child? As challenge areas?

· What elements of the Progress Report are of most interest to you? What questions or insights do you have?

* * * * *

Parent-Teacher Conferences offer teachers and parents the opportunity to see, celebrate and support each child. They play a vital role in the parent-school partnership—and they deserve our keenest insights into and our deepest commitment to the children we serve.

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