Four parenting practices can build emotional strength and self-confidence in children.
Children have always faced a variety of challenges, including academic stress, heartbreak, and disappointment. Helping children develop resilience, or the ability to rebound from setbacks, is critical for their emotional well-being.
Often the first parental instinct is to shield children from pain or sadness. But denying kids these challenging experiences might rob them of opportunities to build resilience.
Fortunately, fostering resilience in children is a practice that starts in the home, says BYU family-life professor Adam A. Rogers (BS ’12), who directs one of the largest studies to date on adolescent resilience.
Parents are ideally situated to help train kids in resilience because “they see their kids across all contexts and know their natures better than anybody else,” says Rogers.
Over the past four years, Rogers and his team have tracked family dynamics in more than 1,200 families nationwide to uncover the fundamental parenting practices that contribute to children’s emotional health and resilience.
Against the backdrop of record-high anxiety and depression in youth today paired with the pressures of social media, Rogers emphasizes the pivotal role parents play in nurturing resilience.
“We need good frameworks to help us discern the most important parenting priorities,” says Rogers. “To me, the data clearly and repeatedly point back to the quality of relationships between parents and children and the quality of relationships in the home generally.”
Rogers’s research has identified four key parenting priorities, grounded in strong, authentic familial bonds. These priorities can be a catalyst for fostering resilience, emotional well-being, and self-confidence in children.
1. Model respectful, close, and stable relationships in the home.
“The relationship between mom and dad sets the emotional tone in the home,” says Rogers. “If you want resilience in your kids, an important priority is your relationship with your spouse because that steadiness can help foster emotional steadiness in your children.”
2. Foster an atmosphere of trust that allows children to feel comfortable opening up about anything.
Then listen when kids are ready to talk. “Fight the urge to jump in and try to solve something immediately,” says Rogers. “Kids of all ages need to feel heard, and active listening pays off a lot in this regard.”
3. Maintain meaningful family routines.
This quality time together allows for natural communication. “Our participant families report that when they have more opportunities to spend quality time together, their children typically feel more comfortable opening up,” says Rogers. Eating, worshipping, playing, and working together can convey crucial core values.
4. Avoid distracting children or downplaying their emotions when they express difficult feelings, including those associated with anxiety or depression.
“Respond in a supportive way by validating and asking questions,” says Rogers. “And then use it as an opportunity to collaborate on strategies for managing their feelings.”
