
Emotional Awareness and Regulation
Emotional resilience is connected to emotional regulation. If your child has trouble expressing their feelings, they can become angry and if that anger or frustration is suppressed for too long, it can eventually lead your child to use drugs or alcohol or any number of things to cope. Instead of resorting to self-medication or other harmful ways to channel powerful emotions, kids and teens can learn how to be aware of their emotions and manage them appropriately. Life can be demanding and full of change and adversity, therefore it’s important that our kids and teens learn to embrace some degree of uncertainty without melting down or blaming others. One way to help your child with their emotional regulation is to teach them not to blame other people for their actions or emotions. Accountability and self-mastery are helpful skills to develop as they mature. They simply need to share how they feel about an experience and take full responsibility for whatever emotion is elicited. Although, no emotion is wrong, all emotions do not need to be acted upon. Reacting rather than responding to a powerful emotion can cause your kid or teen to do something they might regret later. Learning to think before acting is a sign of maturity and emotional resilience.Focus on the Positive
Stress has a way of making your child focus on the negative. As school gets more demanding, your high schooler may begin to believe they will not graduate or get into a good college. They could think they will face too many struggles in the future that they cannot handle. Motivate your teen to develop a positive mindset when it seems like everything can go wrong. Teach your child positive affirmations such as “I can only get better” or “Just because I failed one thing today does not make me a failure.” You can help your child understand that failures and challenges are learning experiences. You can get better with each mistake you make as long as they are not repeated. Give your teen credit for putting themselves out there and trying.Believing in Themselves
Your child may have the mindset that money and popularity are the only ways to achieve success. There are many definitions of success. Success and overcoming challenges for any child begins with believing that they can do anything they set their mind to with the right support along the way. You can inspire your child to believe in themselves by asking them three things they did well the past week and how they felt. This will give your child the recognition that they are winners every day they try. You can also ask them to list good things others have said about them. Share these positive acknowledgements with them often. They will eventually recall these kind words in any challenging situation they endeavor and any door they open.Managing Perfectionism
Imperfection is synonymous to being human. However, many children and adults strive to be perfect despite plenty of evidence that shows that perfectionism causes psychological distress. Perfectionism can rob our children of their peace due to holding unnecessarily high and even unrealistic standards. Emotionally resilient kids have growth mindsets and understand that striving for excellence is a worthy goal. But striving for perfection is an impossible one. When our children make a mistake, they think that they are failing or not measuring up to a set standard. But we can teach our kids that life is about exploring, experiencing, and growing. I often share with the teens that I counsel that life becomes much more interesting once we abandon our urge for perfection and aim for excellence and imperfection instead. As caring adults, we play a part in breaking the cycle of perfectionism for our kids and teens. Here are some replacement thoughts or “affirmations” that can help your child to cope with perfectionistic thoughts:- My worth isn’t based on my accomplishments.
- Not everything deserves 100% of my time and energy.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful.
- Mistakes are an opportunity to learn and grow.
- I will give myself grace when I make a mistake.
