The “Everybody gets a trophy” philosophy might be coming to an end. Research shows that giving kids kudos just for participation might make them LESS resilient, instead of boosting their self-esteem, like we once thought. So if your kid doesn’t get a trophy, how do you help them fail without giving up? How do you ensure the process of failure makes them tougher? Courtney has two strategies to build them up.
Research suggests we need to re-think our perception of women as “the weaker sex,” particularly when it comes to a crisis. I thought about this today when several friends posted about their husband’s “man colds,” and how their husbands are unable to get anything done while sick. It’s a silly stereotype, but many women feel stronger than they are given credit for. Now the research seems to agree.
This article references the maritime code of conduct – women and children first! – as having come about due do a large ship disaster in 1852. This behavior rule has spilled over into the way we handle our communities during a crisis to this day, often lumping the women and children into a single group for whom others must care and protect, while the men are tasked with fixing, building, finding, protecting, and feeding.
But when community disasters play out in real life, response interventions are most successful when they allow the women to help. Many women feel naturally inclined to help and provide, anyway, and may feel an even greater pull to do so in a traumatic moment. In fact, communities that encourage women to participate in disaster response have reported that women volunteered in GREATER numbers than did men.
What are the benefits of women being leaders after a crisis, and not just victims?
First of all, women may prioritize different things than men. Having women participate means that more voices are heard and better decision-making can be accomplished. Women know things that men don’t know, the researchers found, because they serve different roles. In one report, researchers found societies where women are strong leaders of the household are better poised to recover from disaster than communities where women are seen as being subservient to men.
Additionally, women who participated in disaster response and rebuilding efforts felt more empowered, and felt greater buy-in about the community in the future. The crisis, then, created a new crop of leaders out of the women.
Women survive crisis in a different way than men. They reach out to others and rely on relationships. They focus on the survival of the people. They may, according to some researchers, be more proactive about future change. Women don’t need protection during a crisis, after all. They need to lead.
Is chivalry dead? When it comes to life and death situations, maybe it should be.
-Courtney
As the big sister, I’m supposed to teach my little siblings things. And believe me, I have, whether they wanted to learn them or not. (Hey, there’s a reason “bossy big sister is a stereotype, okay!”) But when I started thinking about where I learned lessons of resilience, I learned that my siblings are actually great resilience role models.
Both my little brother and my little sister are great Resilience Role Models. Both have had great success in the big, wide world, and I’m incredibly proud of the way they handle themselves when things don’t go their way.
My little sister is the baby of the family – she’s 10 years younger than I am. She lives in New York and is making her way as an actress. Now, I lived in New York as a teenager and young adult, trying to work in theatre, too. But I found after a few years that I just couldn’t handle the rejection. Little Sis, on the other hand, never seems to take it personally. Oh, sure, she gets annoyed when she is passed over for a part she thought she was perfect for. But she doesn’t question her talent, or lapse into a funk. In fact, it seems to propel her to work harder at the numbers game that is auditions. When I was in her shoes, I was full of self-doubt from always feeling unwanted. Little Sis takes every rejection in stride, and she absolutely has the attitude that it takes to be successful in the difficult business of performing.
Little Bro is only a few years younger than I am, and he had his shining resilient moment when he was coming out of college. He had read a book about microfinance and micro-lending, where citizens of developing countries (often women) are given small loans to start a business. The women are taught how to manage money, grow their business, and ultimately pay the loan back. Giving women stable careers benefits families and entire communities. Little Bro was on fire for this kind of work! He couldn’t wait to go to South America and volunteer. But it turned out that all of the nonprofit organizations in the field only wanted volunteers who already had their MBA. Email after email, Little Bro got turned down. And Little Bro isn’t the kind of guy who usually gets turned down in life! What he did next shocked and impressed me. He picked up the phone and started calling. He sold himself harder than I’ve ever seen him sell. And finally one of the organizations agreed that he could come to South America with them as a microfinance volunteer. (The rest of the story, by the way, is that not only did Little Bro prove he was as good as the MBA volunteers, but he did such an amazing job his first few weeks that they sent him back to the home office to help the staff rewrite the business plan!)
We need Resilience Role Models in our lives for two reasons – to show us great resilient behavior, AND to remind us that we’re not the only ones struggling with brick walls. Do you know who your Resilience Role Models are? Who can you look to in your life that handles challenge with grace? Keep your eye on them, so when life gets you down you can follow in their footsteps.
-Courtney
The new pencils are sharpened. The backpacks are laid by the front door with care. It’s the start of a new school year!
Every parent wants his or her child do start the new year with a bang. It’s much easier to have a successful school year if you start out on the right foot. So what can parents do to ensure success this year? Make sure their children are resilient students!
A resilient student will not only score better on homework and tests, but will have a much happier attitude about school and education overall. School is, in fact, a wonderful place for kids to learn about healthy ways to struggle, and how to bounce back from defeat.
The three major things resilient students know are:
1) Accept feedback gracefully
2) Ask for help early
3) Judge the learning, not the score
As a parent, first, help your student accept feedback gracefully. When the teacher writes a note in red ink at the top of a paper, it isn’t a personal condemnation; it’s a suggestion for your student to put more effort into a certain element of the work next time. If the teacher is giving constructive criticism, help your student accept it for what it is and move on. This skill will come in handy in athletics, the arts, and definitely later in life on the job.
Next, encourage a struggling student to ask for help as early as possible. When my son started college, I told him to go to the TAs the first time he had a question, even if he could probably get it answered by another student. By asking for help early, you show an eagerness to learn that educators respond well to. No one likes the kid with the failing grade who shows up the week before finals and asks, “What do I need to do to pass?” Instead, at the BEGINNING of the semester, ask, “What do I need to do to be successful?” A teacher would much rather help any child whose goal is to succeed – regardless of their innate ability in the subject – rather than a kid who coasted and is now panicking.
The last suggestion is probably the hardest one. Try to show your child that it’s important to judge the learning, not the score. Their improvement in a subject is far more important than the grade, although that can be hard for both parents and children to stomach in this competitive world we live in. But kids aren’t supposed to know everything on the first day of school – if they were, why do you get up at 5:45 every morning to get them on the school bus! Your children are there to learn, and learning is the goal, not straight As. So try to praise the achievement and the improvement, and let them see that it’s the hard work that you care most about.
These reminders will help you build resilient students for this school year and the rest of their education. There are a lot of late nights, field trip forms, group projects and cram sessions ahead, but you can do it!
-Courtney
