Our world has changed dramatically over the last 30 to 40 years. The physical and social environment that our children are growing up in is both significantly more challenging and profoundly easier. This combination has unfortunately cultivated a major decline in the resilience of the younger generations. It is no wonder that Resilience has become such a buzzword in mental health circles.

The youth of today are delaying when they get their driver’s license, when they date, and are more likely to struggle with high levels of anxiety. They seem less able and willing to exert energy or confidence into doing hard things. While many factors are contributing to this predicament, I wish to focus on what we can do to equip our children to be strong and resilient in the face of difficulty and challenge.

Resilient Parents

The first step in raising resilient children is by being resilient parents. I have observed over the years that parents are becoming less resilient themselves. Could that be the easy access to boundless quantities of information and distraction found on their smartphones? Possibly. Could it be a shifting culture of accountability that says teachers are responsible for children’s grades and behavior, not the child? Maybe. Could it be the over-protectiveness of our children’s self-esteem that says we can’t allow them to feel bad or inferior in any way? Perhaps. Whatever it is, I have seen parents less willing to push their children, or themselves, through hard things to reap the rewards on the other side.

I have counseled many parents who panic when their child is struggling to learn and practice this one important lesson:

Learn to become comfortable with your child’s discomfort

Children will rise or fall to the level of our emotional energy. If I struggle when my child is uncomfortable and try to rescue them from that discomfort, I will effectively teach them that discomfort is bad and that they must avoid it at all costs. What a tragedy that is! The reality of life and change is that growth does not happen in the comfort zone, and comfort does not happen in the growth zone. So, if we want our children to be resilient, we must see their discomfort and struggle as an opportunity for growth and development.

Much like a young chick struggling to hatch from the egg, the struggle is what creates the strength for survival. A mother hen does not stand over each egg pulling the broken shell apart to make that hatching easier. She is wise and allows each chick to push and struggle, get worn out, and eventually succeed. To be resilient parents, we must have the courage to do the same. We cannot clear away every obstacle to help our child succeed. It is through overcoming the obstacles that lead them to know how to handle difficulty and persevere throughout their lives. 

What we can do is teach them the skills and mindsets that will enable them to conquer the challenges they will face. We should give them chances to practice those skills often, and have conversations with them about what they are learning about themselves. Resilient parents prepare their child for the path, and not the path for their child.

Helping Children Become Resilient

This past month, my wife and I provided our daughter with an opportunity to do something hard, and amazing. As a tradition, when each of our children turns 12, they get to go on a trip with just Mom and Dad to any state of their choosing. My daughter, in her wisdom, chose Hawaii. We decided to go to the island of Kauai. One of the most beautiful parts of that island is the Na Pali coastline. Stunning, jagged green cliffs rise out of the tropical waters in glorious majesty. There is a trail on the Northside of the island that traverses up and down and around this coastline 11 miles to a beautiful beach. My wife and I had been wanting to backpack this trail for years and now had the opportunity to do so.

The interesting part of this story is that my daughter doesn’t like hiking. Historically she has complained when we have taken our children on hikes through National Parks. Yet, my wife and I knew that this hike through the jungles and cliffs of a tropical paradise would be an experience of a lifetime.

So we pushed forward knowing it would be hard. Knowing she would probably complain. Knowing that through it all, she would probably love it (fingers crossed).

We planned the hike to be a 3-day, 2-night backpacking trip in the middle of our Hawaii vacation. The first few days we enjoyed beaches, playing in the ocean, boat trips to see dolphins and other magical adventures. As the time grew closer to the big hike, our daughter started complaining of not feeling well and was less motivated to do much of anything except lay around in the hotel room. My wife and I began to feel a little worried about what the next 3 days would bring as we didn’t have any other reservations/accommodations for the next 2 nights.

So we pushed forward trusting in our daughter’s ability to do hard things and be resilient. Before you think we are terrible parents to have our child do this hike when she was sick, let me give some context. The truth is that she had a mild case of a cold and a serious case of “I really don’t want to do this.” 

I could see through her apprehension as I had seen this behavior several times before. Her motivation and energy always wane when she is asked to do something she doesn’t want to do. Suddenly, those tasks become monumental hurdles that seem too daunting to overcome. Psychosomatic symptoms rear their ugly heads and render her “too sick” to do what is asked.

But we trusted in her ability to do hard things. She is a strong girl.

So when we woke up at 5 am to pack up our stuff, check out of the hotel and drive to the trailhead, for some reason she seemed extra motivated to stay in bed. She got many pep talks from her parents and the reminder, “Just because you don’t want to do something doesn’t change the fact that you still have to.”

She reluctantly got out of bed and followed her parents to the car like a lamb to the slaughter. Her cold symptoms seemed strangely magnified. Her mindset was clear– I don’t want to do this. I can’t believe you are making me do something I don’t like on my special 12-year-old trip. This is going to be terrible.

The 45-minute drive to the trailhead only seemed to magnify her mindset. Her brow somehow fell into some strange anomaly of extra gravitational pull. Her steps were heavy and slow. She scoffed at her parents’ bright smiles and positivity. Her backpack, probably only 10 – 12 pounds, pressed firmly upon her shoulders.

And then we started the beautiful hike up the trail. Before a quarter of a mile, she was already begging for a break. We consented and I could see that her mindset was growing heavier. I worried about our pace since we planned to hike the full 11 miles the first day to be able to camp at the beach. If we continued at the pace of stopping every few hundred yards we would never make it by nightfall. 

At the half-mile marker, I decided that something needed to be done for us to make the camp in time. So, in full-dad mode, I took her pack and strapped it to my front, adding to the 40+ pound pack I was already carrying on my back. With a smile, we pushed forward.

My daughter continued to struggle. She slogged up the hill, angry at her parents for making her do this long hike– completely missing the absolute beauty surrounding her. While my wife and I marveled and commented on how amazing the hike was, she complained about how much her feet and shoulders hurt (remember, I am carrying her backpack) and how much she was going to need a foot and shoulder massage at the end of the day.

Amused at this comment I went into Therapist-Dad teaching mode. I said, “The heaviest thing you have been carrying is your mindset. I took your backpack for you, but that mindset is weighing you down more than your backpack ever did.”

I don’t think she liked that comment, but it stuck in her head. We kept talking about the power of mindset as we traversed up and down the rocky and muddy tropical trail. We played riddle games to get her focus off of her misery. Eventually, the complaining decreased. Our comments about the sheer beauty of the trail started to wear off on her and she started to notice her surroundings more clearly. The scowl disappeared. Her mindset started to shift.

At the 6-mile marker, we stopped at a river with some small waterfalls and ponds to relax and refresh. As we started back on the trail, my wife gave my daughter her backpack to carry for herself. Remarkably, with her pack on her own shoulders, she hiked without complaint. She started to comment on the beauty of her surroundings. And interestingly, despite the next 5 miles being the most challenging of the whole hike, she pressed forward with real resilience. We arrived at the beach a mere 30 minutes before sunset and set up camp. We sat together on the beach and watched the sun plunge below the horizon in colorful majesty together.

Over the next 2 days, we didn’t hear our daughter complain much at all. Her smile had returned and she talked about how cool the scenery was. We praised her often for her toughness and laughed together at her previous attitude. We were all tired, sore, and hungry as we got back to the car at the end of the 3 days. But we carried with us a wonderful memory together and a powerful learning experience.

You see, my daughter had developed a Growth Mindset forged through challenges. Carol Dweck, in her powerful book, Mindset, talks about this idea of how critical our mindset is in being resilient, gritty people. She speaks of two mindsets: a Growth Mindset and a Fixed Mindset. Below is a chart that outlines the characteristics of each.

Growth Mindset	Fixed Mindset
Embrace Challenges	Avoid challenges
Persist in the face of challenges	Give up easily when faced with obstacles
See effort as a path to mastery	See effort as a waste of time
Learn from criticism	Ignore criticism or other useful negative feedback
Find lessons and inspiration in the success of others	Feel threatened by the success of others

This Growth Mindset can, and should, be trained. We must teach and provide opportunities for our children to develop it. We, as parents, must do everything we can to role model this mindset ourselves. We can not shy away from hard things. Our children need to see us doing difficult things with the right attitude. We can’t be afraid of our children doing hard things either. For it is only through doing hard things that they will gain the self-confidence necessary to become healthy, successful adults.

Follow Up With Learning Lessons

A week after our hike along the Na Pali coast, I sat down with my daughter and asked her what she learned about herself and resilience through her experience. Here is what she said:

“I get grumpy when I go on hikes but after a few miles, I get happy. Hikes aren’t that hard, I can do it. I’m a strong girl.”

“I need to work on having a Growth Mindset. I realized there’s no getting out of this. I might as well be happy. Once I took off that mindset, everything was really beautiful.”

“I learned that things taste better when you’re not complaining. Getting wet isn’t the end of the world.”

“I can do hard things.  The thing that stops me from doing hard things is just the negative voice in my head” (the fears, worries, doubts).

“I’ve learned to be resilient because being resilient will help me with life skills. If I’m resilient I can cope with hard things. Like hikes, homework, softball, running, girl drama, etc.”

“Resilience means pushing through even when it’s hard.”

I’m so proud of my daughter. The hike was legitimately very challenging. It has been ranked as one of the top 10 best hikes in the world (and most dangerous/difficult). We got many comments from other hikers along the trail about how awesome it was that a 12-year-old girl was doing the hike.

But mostly, I’m so glad that she had an opportunity to do something truly challenging and learn some profound and life-changing lessons about herself. She really is a strong girl. She really can do hard things. She really can be resilient. She just needed a push. From resilient parents who weren’t afraid of her discomfort.