I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Mainly because it has been the top topic in several of the arenas I am involved in. I was at a Leadership Los Alamos session on resiliency at the Teen Center. We spent the day talking about this, identifying the needs in the community, and the programs in place, and discussing what it is.
I am at a School Board conference now and the word has popped up a few times.
We talk about this often. Mostly in the context of how we need our kids to build resiliency. And how there are all these intervention programs. But my questions are how do we do this? And even more, what does it look like?
Well, I have my thoughts on this. I have a kid who I think is pretty darn resilient. And I didn’t realize it until recently. As a mom who hates to see her kids struggle, yet lets her kids struggle…I never really recognized resiliency in them until I paused and observed. And here is what I saw:
The other night, after coming in late from work, I headed up the stairs to bed and I heard my daughter crying. I knocked and entered her room. She was lying in the dark in bed, quietly sobbing. I knelt down next to the bed and asked her if she needed to talk. I already knew what it was about. Not only that, I knew it wasn’t about a boy, or friends, or any kid drama. I knew, in my heart, that she is heading downhill toward depression.
Last school year, as a Freshman, she got depressed. By the end of the year, she was complaining of stomach issues. Of course, I attributed that to her diet of soda and pizza from school lunches. So my advice was to quit drinking soda and change her diet. That sage advice didn’t work. It just got worse. We tried probiotics, healthy foods, exercise and other healthy changes that had no effect. But after a summer in Colorado working as a lifeguard, her stomach issues went away. The Dr. had recommended she pay attention to how she felt during summer, and it became clear to me, to her, and to her doctor that her health issues stemmed from stress.
This school year, she and I discussed ways to try to manage stress. There are several factors involved with these rising stress levels, and they all involve school.
As she lay there crying, she told me that she had written emails to her 6th grade teachers. She told me that was the best time in school. She used to look forward to going to school every day. She would come home excited about what she learned. She felt successful and energized. But last night, as she was telling me how much she missed 6th grade, my heart broke for her. Here is what she said:
I go to a place every day that has no meaning to me. I dread going. Not only that, but I feel like a failure, I feel stupid. I am asked to do work that has no meaning for me or is hard for me to understand. When I ask for help, I am told it is easy, which makes me feel even worse. I do not see how anything I am learning is helping me achieve my own goals. I just want more sleep. It is so hard sometimes to stay awake in class. In math, I quit on the first problem because I didn’t understand, so I just gave up and started talking…then I got in trouble. And my goals don’t fit the high expectations of society, because I do not want to go to college. And I am so tired and depressed.
This is a girl who has friends, is involved in extracurriculars- choir, band, and dance. She is fun and laughs easily. She finds small joys in daily occurrences. She sings, and she draws. These are activities she turns to when she needs to reset. And as I sat there listening to her, I wanted to scream and yell at the system. I wanted to fix all her problems. I wanted to email her teachers and advocate for her. I wanted to hold her and make it all better.
But I didn’t. I asked her what she could do to help herself get through this. I told her to let me know if she needed help. I told her I love her, I respect her, and I did my best to empathize. Then I went to bed full of faith that she was going to be ok.
The next day she forwarded me the email she sent to her teachers. This is what it said-
Good evening,
This is MB I was in 6th grade with you all in 2018-2019. I’m writing to let you all know how much I miss you three. I’m now a sophomore at the high school, and I’ve been majorly struggling in school ever since Covid, and honestly since I left 6th grade. It got me thinking about how grateful I am and how grateful I should’ve been to have you guys in my life! Thinking back to it, I remember how successful I felt and how meaningful the work was for me, it didn’t feel useless and meaningless. I loved waking up and going to school everyday, I wanted to learn, I never dreaded it. You all individually, had your ways of teaching and I loved them all.
Ms.Christine I’ve never had more fun in history class before and I’ve never been that excited to learn history before, you made me love history by what you did. Don’t stop. Mrs. Coy I’ve never understood math that well in my life. Science was so fun with you and I loved helping with the 6th grade dance! Ms. Young you were my homeroom, I miss your stories, how personal you were and how you connected with your students and excited them.
There is just so much about you all individually that I miss and love. I could write a whole book about how much you three impacted me in my school life and my personal life, I’ve never been happier. I wish you guys could be my teachers for the rest of my life! I’m struggling a lot right now, not just with school and poor grades, but with depression. Im going to a place I don’t want to be everyday, doing work that feels meaningless and uninspiring. Classes that feel useless and boring, I’m exhausted, I’m drained.. I feel unsuccessful. I feel like I’m wasting my life at school rather than living it out. Though all of that, was the opposite for you guys.
Okay, I can keep writing for hours but I won’t torture y’all. Though, I deeply thank you all for everything you’ve done for me. You guys changed my life then and I will never forget it. Thank you X
Sincerely,
MB
These teachers responded to her and invited her to join them for a coffee or something.
When she showed this to me, I realized…this is what resiliency looks like.
It is crying, it is telling someone who can empathize with what you are feeling. It is feeling the feelings…allowing them to come up and allowing yourself to be in them. It is reaching out and finding gratitude. It is trying to accept what can’t be changed and find joy in what you have. It is recognizing that the problem may not get solved, and that it will still be ok. It is taking the time to care for oneself instead of hurting oneself.
My daughter has the space and support to feel safe in her feelings. Not all our kids have that. She had an experience to look back on and be grateful for. Not all of us have that either. She also recognized that she was depressed, frustrated, angry…she was able to identify and give a voice to those feelings.
This is resiliency. It’s being able to be in the hard stuff, get through the hard stuff, move past it, and find ways to feel better. It is not having someone save you or fix you, but knowing that someone is with you.
So, if we want our kids to be resilient…what do we do? How do we do it? Not all kids have the same resources. So, how do we do this?
Here’s a few ideas. Ages ago, a fellow teacher did a little experiment during a staff meeting to see if we had any students that did not have any adult(teacher) in their life who saw them. I mean…saw them, who they are, know them, talk to them. Having an adult in a student’s life other than a parent is one the the 40 developmental assets.
Kids need to know that their feelings are real and ok. Even the feelings of hopelessness, despair, depression. That these are ok to feel. And that someone can be there for them who will not judge them, but let them just be. Our kids need to know that they can struggle and it is ok. That they can fail and it is ok. That they will have opportunities to learn from those struggles and failures.
My daughter was allowed to struggle. In fact, she had no choice. She is my 4th kid and I had realized at that point that everything would be ok. She struggles in math. She sat on the floor in 4th grade crying over math. And I did nothing, but sit with her. I didn’t help her, I didn’t do the problems or teach her. I realized ages before this, that the teacher needs to know the kid is struggling. If I help her at home and she goes to school with perfect math…then the teacher doesn’t know. She begged me to help her. I gave her advice and ideas, but that was all. Eventually she started figuring out how to solve her problem. She recognized that when she was tired it was harder, So she would stop and go to bed early then get up half an hour early to do the math in the morning. She started writing notes to her teacher about how she didn’t understand. She got the help she needed at school. She still struggles at math, but she now has the confidence to advocate for herself. She knows how to approach her teachers and ask for help.
These are skills our kids need to develop resiliency. They need to be allowed to struggle and allowed to fail. And allowed to solve a problem for themselves. They need these experiences. And it is even better if they can have them with someone at their side, rather than alone.
As the adults in their world..are we resilient? Do we model this for them? And are we empathetic? There is a great little video that helps to describe empathy- check it out.
Let’s talk about this…let’s help our kids build resiliency. Let’s give them experience with love and support to get through something hard and to just be in their feelings.
My daughter may not be an A student. She may not go to college. But I have no doubt that she will be successful in ways that will allow her to thrive. And isn’t that what we want? For our kids to thrive?
Educational Rant 