Raising Resilience by Christopher Willard

Author:Christopher Willard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sounds True

reflectionWhat battles can you let go of, at least for now? How can you streamline or reduce your kids’ choices? Are there points with your partner where you struggle with different priorities?

Here’s another tip: according to a study by researcher Ellen Langer, when you want your kids to do something, the way you ask matters. People are more likely to agree to a request or an instruction when you offer a reason (even a nonsensical one).13 Rather than telling your kid to “Set the table,” you’ll find more success if you try something like, “Set the table because it’s dinner time.”

Another big “what” in terms of perennial battles is around food. Resistence to eating new foods may even be hardwired in by evolution. But there’s good news: before age five, kids may not eat balanced meals, but within the span of seven days, many will eat a balanced week’s worth of food. While they may refuse vegetables one night at dinner, they can learn to listen to their bodies and find those needed nutrients in the next well-rounded meal we place in front of them. We can also invest effort in the short run and save in the long run by involving our kids not in making choices but in making food—from gardening to slicing and stirring, each step of the way leads to more ownership over the meal. We don’t know for certain whether children were historically picky eaters, but we do know they probably helped at all these stages of the meal and were less picky in the past. We can also encourage them to try every food ten times before giving up, which also leads to fewer blanket pronouncements of “dislike.” So with spinach, that means spinach salad, sautéed spinach, saag paneer, spanakopita, spinach quiche, spinach pasta, and so on. Wouldn’t it be a relief to have your kids say they dislike half of these items rather than a blanket refusal of spinach? My friend Mark Bertin, a developmental pediatrician, is adamant about not making “kid food,” which takes more effort and sends the message that kid food and adult food are different things, discouraging experimentation. He also recommends putting everything on a kid’s plate. Even if they just eat the burrito wrapper today, eventually they will eat the insides. But they never will if they don’t first get used to it being on their plate.

When we can find a middle path between under- and overparenting, it’s incredible how much we can help our families. We’ll often miss the mark, but we can keep getting closer, moving to one side or the other depending on our situations, histories, and temperaments. This is also where our self-compassion helps. We feel tremendous shame and anxiety about over- or underparenting, and we judge ourselves preemptively before the other playground parent, professional, or even our partner has a chance to. Let the unhelpful comparisons go.

On a flight across the Atlantic recently, Leo got his first exposure to screen time (he even tried to hug Daniel Tiger through the iPad).

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