Moms Talk: Building Resilience

Q: How can I teach my kids to be more resilient?

A: This year is the first school year my son has received grades. He’s in the fourth grade. Before, it was mostly satisfactory, with an excellent or two in between. Some of his grades have been good, some of them not. We just received second-quarter grades, and there was one grade in particular that didn’t go well—math.

He was pretty upset about this one not-so-super grade. He wallowed for the evening, picking fights with me, until I finally figured out what was going on and sat him down for a talk. It’s funny how one failure can make all the other positive remarks and grades fade into the background. Why is failure such a hard pill to swallow?

I took it as an opportunity to talk about what failure really means. I think it’s fine to spend a day nursing hurt feelings and feeling let down, but at some point, it’s time to learn something and move forward.

“If you give up and don’t try again,” I told him, “then you are a failure, but if you decide what you want to achieve, learn from your short fall and try again, you will find success—eventually.”

I told him that the only person who can decide whether he will be a failure is him. If he gives up and doesn’t try, then he can avoid future failures, but he’ll also be missing out on possible and likely successes, too. Dealing with academic difficulties became an opportunity to teach resilience.  

If you fall off a bike, you get back on again. Eventually, riding a bike is like breathing; you no longer have to think about it. Failure is something we all face at some point. Teaching kids to take it well can make them more resilient, more successful in their future.

As we drove to school the next Monday, I encouraged him to talk to his math teacher about what he can do to make the situation better, and then we sang to Chumbawamba: "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never going to keep me down."