In several schools that I have worked with recently, it has become apparent that a strong culture has developed of parents/carers requesting that the school directly address every problem their individual children experience – including, for example, friendship issues. I fully understand that this comes from a place of love on the part of the parents/carers and that possibly this has become more common since the stresses of lockdown. However, in the long run, the approach of addressing everything for our children does them no favours.
It is totally understandable that it is hard for us to watch our children struggle in any way. Watching our children suffer, even in the slightest, can trigger strong emotions in us – that we ourselves often don’t consciously manage well – prompting us to either:
- Dismiss the problem in an attempt to diminish it. This approach can leave a child feeling not listened to or understood.
- Jump in with solutions and bombard a child with advice about what they need to do. This is a common approach but when you consider being on the receiving end of this, even as an adult, it can often feel a little agitating and suddenly not about you any more!
- Sort out the problem directly, for example, marching up to your child’s school and demanding a playmate for them at break time because they reported having nobody to play with. This approach seems to sort things quickly but not always effectively and certainly not in the most beneficial way.
To explore this with parents and carers I usually ask:
Parents and carers nearly always admit to responding in one, or all, of the ways listed above, depending on the circumstance.
I move on to explain how these approaches are not as helpful as they might first seem and why. I explain a fourth approach: that of active listening and speculating about emotions, to initiate problem solving. It’s a simple but effective approach and I describe it as follows:
- Be aware of your own emotional response to your child struggling and resist its drive to sort the situation as quickly as possible.
- Listen activity (lots of attentive interaction, and speculate about how your child is probably feeling).
For example:
- ‘It sounds to me like you’re feeling a bit left out.’
- ‘I wonder if you’re feeling a bit worried that you’re not going to cope.’
- ‘It must be really upsetting to have fallen out with X as you’ve been good friends for so long.’
3. Allow your child to explore their problem with you, but resist any temptation to dismiss, bombard with advice or to get involved directly.
4. At worst – your child will feel better for having been listened to, at best – your child will have worked out what they are going to do about their problem.
This approach allows children the opportunity to problem solve. More importantly, it ultimately provides children with the opportunity to see for themselves that they can cope by themselves. In the long run, as a child has more opportunities to be more self-reliant, their anxiety is reduced as they demonstrate to themselves that they can cope. It takes conscious parenting to be able to ‘step back’ in this way but its benefits are helping a child develop greater resilience.
I also find it helpful to mention the need to change our parenting as our children grow. When a baby arrives, we need to do everything for that baby as they can do little for themselves. We need to protect babies. However, at the other end of our time parenting, we hope to send an ‘effective adult’ into the world who won’t need us following them around 24/7, looking out for them. Our aim is that we will have equipped our child to manage without us in the main.
This highlights the necessity to change our parenting along this journey to meet our children’s changing needs as they develop. I have seen parents respond to this with a ‘loud’ ‘penny drop’ moment, when they realise they might have been more protective than the age their child warrants. It’s hard to find time to stand back and take stock with our parenting approaches when we’re in the midst of it all!
I will also point put that this approach is also often the most helpful when it comes to supporting adults with a problem (unless it’s something practical like, ‘I need my car fixed!). Most of us have experienced the person who showers us with advice, simply tries to reassure us with, ‘You’ll be OK’ and/or takes over and leaves us and our superior knowledge of the details our problem, out of the equation. Often , we do just want someone to really listen and then maybe, after we’ve felt we’ve been really heard, offer some suggestions or alternative perspectives.
So why have I called this post ‘Resilience Policy’?
When the overwhelming culture in a school has become that of parents getting involved and communicating with staff over every small problem children encounter, it’s likely proactive action is needed for this to be addressed. One headteacher came up with the genius idea of writing a ‘Resilience Policy’: a policy that would gently educate all of the adults in a school community about the approaches towards the day-to-day problems children experience, in the name of creating more resilient children.
Of course I loved this idea! I even cursorily considered what I might include in such a policy:
P.S. I have also worked with parents who would ‘do nothing’ in the face of their children’s difficulties because of their own vulnerabilities. This is the other end of the ‘intervention’ spectrum and also far from ideal. The active listening approach reassuringly provides a child with a ‘middle ground’: you show you are really there for them, but you’re trusting them to be self-reliant.