Emotional Self-Regulation in Children: Raising Resilient Kids

When I became a mother for the first time, I spent those initial days fretting over my son’s little body and our surroundings, making sure nothing bad could happen to him.

I was, after all, in charge of his wellbeing. At the time, that felt like the only duty I had.

But as time went on, and he joined daycare and then elementary school, I realized that I would not be there to protect him all the time.

And I wasn’t just thinking about physical protection anymore. I wanted to make him almost anti-fragile so I he could build resilience from the inevitability of life and its disappointments.

And that’s the angst of every parent.

We want to rescue our children from failure, disappointment, and consequences.

But children who are given the chance to rescue themselves will also find ways to recover later.

Unless it’s a life-and-death issue, we can prime their little minds for failure by helping them understand that failures are simply stepping stones towards their goals.

Because real life is messy and unpredictable. Children who never get the chance to sit with disappointment may not know what to do when life doesn’t go their way. They may become overwhelmed or completely avoid the real problem at hand.

And when they’re finally ready to start adulting, it might be too late. Children who are always rescued may not learn how to recover.

We may unintentionally teach them that hard feelings are emergencies, that they are something to quickly distract ourselves from by reaching for the next soothing ice cream, gift, or reward.

But we never gave them the chance to process that difficult things happen. And that we have to find a way to move forward, by making amends slowly.

That’s how you build a rock-solid emotional core in your child — one that can withstand any storm that comes their way.

Instead of telling your child not to cry, tell them:

“It’s okay. We have a problem. We will figure out what to do next.”

And that’s how you build their self-regulation muscle.

As parents, we don’t have to aim to see our children happy all the time.

We must aim to teach them how to move from disappointment to happiness when bad things happen.

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