Do you feel like your kids often get upset over little things, or have trouble bouncing back after a setback? They might need a boost in their resilience! Host Amelia Phillips talks to Clinical Psychologist and Director of The Resilience Centre Lyn Worsley to learn about the signs of poor resilience in kids, how to apply the Resilience Doughnut practical model, and why parents are only one piece of the resilience puzzle. A great listen for parents with sensitive kids!
Below is an unedited transcript of the podcast episode:
Recently, my four year old Angus was invited to a birthday party and I did the boo boo of turning up with all four of my kids , and one of the games was past the parcel, and I noticed this quick flurry of activity from the host, from the mom before the game started where she quickly added three layers of paper and prize.
To the parcel so that there was the right amount of prizes for each kid. And then as I was watching her doing that, it got me thinking since when did those rules change? When I was a kid, we never all got a prize. I mean, I have these strong memories of being gutted that the kids either side of me got water pistols and I got nothing.
But then also quietly, I was glad that it was fair now because I reckon my three year old Ella would have lost the plot if she didn’t win something.
This is Healthy Her with Amelia Phillips, there’s no question that we all wanna raise resilient human beings who are able to not only cope with the stresses of life, be it pass the parcel, losing a game, friendship upsets, or maybe more serious family drama. But to thrive despite these stresses. But how on earth do we actually do this?
How can our parenting style, our relationships in our environment that we raise our kids in, increase their resilience? Clinical psychologist, Lynn Worsley, is an absolute specialist on the topic. She’s the director of the Resilience Center, has dedicated decades to researching resilience in children. Has written multiple books and developed a fantastic model called the Resilience Donut.
Lynn, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. When it comes to children and resilience, what would your definition of a resilient child be? It’s interesting. I could use the academic resilience definition, which is like enabling a child to navigate and negotiate, or I could use the one that makes more sense to us.
Yes, please. , that is about a child that is nested in a series of relationships or a number of relationships where they get a chance to navigate with their people around them and to negotiate with them to actually get their needs. So the resilient child learns the skills, the resilient child learns to read people well and learns to work out ways that they can cope with the difficulties.
Like not getting a prize at a, uh, Pass the parcel at a party. But what I think is really helpful for us to remember, and we’re looking at resilience, it’s not about a child that has made the grade in terms of resilience. We’re actually looking at a process and a process, which is a lifelong process. None of us actually make it.
We’re all in that process and we have our ups and down. Resilience is more like a verb, not a noun. Okay. And I feel like with resilience, it’s not like you are born resilient and you’re just one of those people that’s equipped with it. It’s a process that we are learning and that we’re we’re learning as individuals and that we’re teaching our children throughout their whole life.
Yes, yes. And that’s why we go back to the academic. Definition, which really refers to the navigation and negotiation, so navigating with the world around them and negotiating with those people who are in their world to be able to get their needs met. So what are some of the signs that a child might be needing some support around resilience?
Like some practical observations that you might see in your clinic, for example. Cause I know that you’re a clinical psychologist, you see this day in and day out. Okay, I’m gonna give you some signs, but I think probably you’ll be sitting there thinking, Oh, my three year old has all of those signs. But these are quite normal, normal things that we’re looking for.
Um, you know, if you’ve got a child who is overly clinging, And a child who’s very dependent on just one person and won’t go to anybody else, or they have a difficulty in adapting or adjusting to any change that’s going on. Now that is a three year old essentially. So that’s just normal behavior. But what we also see is when a child has that going on, but at the same time, a parent or a carer, Or anyone around them who is, you know, looking after them, who gives in to their resistance.
So what we actually want is a little bit of conflict, which three year olds are good at. The conflict itself creates that learning process of how to navigate and negotiate. I’ve gotta learn to navigate with this grandma who’s not gonna let me have the chocolate that I know is in her cupboard, and I’ve gotta navigate with the people at the party and try and work out how I might get a prize, and then I’m going to be disappointed.
And so next time I’m going to be thinking about how I might be able to get that. But it doesn’t actually mean that they always win or they get what they want. I think this is a really important point that you’re making here because us parents don’t actually get the memo of when we transition from looking after our every need that that child has and the needs that need to be met to giving them that independence.
So I remember waking up one day, you know, when my kids were kind of at that 12 to 18 month mark going, Well, hang on a. They can do that by themselves. So why am I jumping in every time, you know, they’re making a squeak. Cause when you’ve got a newborn, they’re just so helpless. You, you have to do everything for them.
But I feel like some of us miss the memo that as they get older, we need to step back. And I’ve heard you use the term taking a pause. Can you explain that? Cause I think this is a really, uh, like it can be a game changer for those of us moms that are always leaping in and, and wanting to fix and wanting to protect our kids.
Yeah. And the pause, if, if you think about the pause, it’s just, it’s such a relief for parents. So a pause you can use as soon as your baby is born. The pause is you just let the child have enough thinking time to be able to think through their situation. If you jump in at any time straight away, you’re not going to give the child thinking time about the situation.
So a toddler who falls over, if you jump in straight away, Oh, oh, oh, are you okay? And, and let me give you a kiss so I’ll kiss it better, and so on. If you do that straight away without a pause, the child doesn’t have that time to think about, am I okay? How will I get up? Is this a really okay? Is the pain going away now?
Did it really hurt or not? And if you have the pause, it’s more like the child falls over you. Pause, count 10 seconds, . And if they start crying, watch the pause. Are they okay? Are they needing to cry? Is that cry helpful? And then go up and say, Oh, are you okay? Do you need my help? Rather than, I’m gonna jump in and do your.
Now that’s a toddler conversation. A newborn baby can also have a pause. A newborn baby is that their baby’s crying and when the baby cries. The whole idea is it’s trying to navigate and negotiate with the world around them to try and get support. If you have a pause that it might be that they’re just putting out a little squeak and they don’t really need to be picked up or fussed over, and that’s squeak, but maybe something that they’ve just discovered their voice.
So that’s a pause that’s really useful for that baby to learn. But then they, if it’s a pause, that means they’re gonna scream louder. They’ve actually worked out that she didn’t hear me the first time, so I’m gonna just scream a bit louder next time. And that’s the child’s brain going, I need to navigate and negotiate with this world.
Yep. Now, if you start using the pause all this time, you’ll find that the pause then translate to the. As, as they get older, having the note negotiation and navigation skills to solve a few problems before they have to call for help. So what about for the moms listening that have school age or teenage children?
What would some. Warning bells be, or some signs that their children might need some support around resilience. Again, if the child is clingy, if the child is adapting only with one person at a time, they’re very clingy to their friends. A possessive. Over their friends and you oftentimes, you see this in teenage relationships.
They have their best friend and their best friend goes off with somebody else at lunchtime, and they’re really offended and they’re really upset. Those are sort of situations where a lot is invested in just one relationship. , and we talk about this in resilience as having a number of relationships and how they may connect, and that’s why it’s really important that a child has more than just one person that’s that’s sustaining them more than just one teacher.
That they have a series of relationships that they’re able to draw on. It’s interesting, you refer so much to relationships and a lot of us. Probably don’t realize that the absolute fundamental platform of resilience is the relationships around us and, and how they are formed. And this is why you’ve developed this fantastic model that I just think is so practical.
And that’s why I love the work that you do because it is so practical. So you’ve developed the resilience donut. What a great name, . My tummy grumble just thinking of it. Um, can you talk us through your resilience donut? Okay. So if you can imagine two circles. There’s an outside circle and an inside circle.
Hence it looks like a donut. Yep. And the inside of the circle, you have a hole in the donut, the hole in the middle. Yes. You have. Imagine the child or yourself. , you know, in the middle. And in the middle. We have phrases that we use to describe ourselves or things that we do, um, draw on in everyday life, ordinary, everyday life.
And those are, you know, I have people to call on when I need help or I have resources that I can use when I’m in trouble. We might also say, I am a nice person, or I am a, um, good person. I’m loved. Or we might say I can do things to change my circumstances. As adults, we might say, I can, I can drive, I can work as children, we can say, I can run, I can skip, I can hop and I can talk my way out of anything.
So those phrases we gather as adults, we gather a bank of those phrases in our head so we can use them for later. Yep. As children, we are developing those phrase, And we get the phrases from seven different areas of our life, which is the next part of the donut, which is the flesh. The dough. Yes. Okay. The tasty bit.
The tasty bit. , what are the seven factors? Yeah, so we are in that outside part, we’ve got seven factors and we can cut the donut up into seven factors. But the really good news is that we only need three of those factors at any one time to keep us buoyant. Right. And so when we have the factors, and I’ll skip through very quickly so you can, um, um, hear what the factors are and as you are, as you’re listening, think through, you know, well, you know, these factors working for me, and, oh, maybe that’s not such, such a strong one.
Maybe the next one will be okay, because you don’t have to have all seven. But the first factor is the parent factor. And the parent factor is really about having some straightforward, open communication with your parent. Um, but it also might mean that you have a parent who is really warm and gentle and affectionate, but at the same time they’re controlling and monitoring and they’re strict.
Yep. You can’t get away with anything. So people who have parents who are too warm and affectionate and just give in all the time, that’s not a really strong factor. Right. If they are the people who have parents who are just so strict and firm, but they’re not warm, Yep. They don’t do very well. Okay. So you gotta have this sort of 50 50 mix.
Yep. The next factor is the skill factor. And in the skill factor, it’s that ability to go, Yes, I can do that. It may not be that you’re good at it. It might be that you just keep trying and trying and trying, and this is the tenacity that you see in children who just never give up, right? For some kids, they just give up after everything and they give.
Give that a go and throw it away and get to the next one, give that a go and throw it away and get to the next one. That’s not developing the skill. It’s more like, it’s what we call in psychology, efficacy, so the ability to go, Oh, I’m efficient at this. I can do it. So if you’ve got a child that scores quite well on the skill factor, you might find that it’s not necessarily that they’ve got a thousand skills that they’ve mastered, but it’s that ability to keep trying at their skills despite failing.
So you say, Oh mommy, I fell off my bike, but I got back on again. So it’s, it’s actually more about the attitude rather than, Oh my, my child can play violin and piano and win it running races. Yeah. Got it. You know, imagine the skateboard. , they fall off all the time. A good skateboard falls off all the time because they’re always thinking, Oh, how am I gonna manage this next?
So that’s a good example of a skill factor. Okay. Now with a skill factor, you often have a reputation. You often have a coach or a mentor, and people sort of might hang out with you because of your skill. It often brings you commonality with others. Okay? The next factor is the family and identity factor.
Identity in there as well because in the research it tells us a lot of times that kids who have a strong family factor, they identify as part of that mob. So it’s like a, a mob mentality or a, you know, this is where I belong. Okay. And this is not just parents, cuz we’ve already got the parents factor.
This is your more extended family outside of parents, cousins aren’t used. That’s correct. Can it be a pseudo family, like your nanny or important people, best friends, godparents, et cetera? No. Okay. They go in another factor. Interesting. So the family factor is really about your grandparents, your aunties, your uncles, your cousins, people who have similar first surname to you, or you know, you can identify as being.
That’s my mob. The next one is education. and in the education factor, it’s where a child has a connection with a, a teacher. It might be even the, the lady at the front desk, if they’re in trouble a lot and sit out the front of the principal’s office, they might, um, get to get to know the admin staff really, really well.
Who sort of go, What did you do? Now, you know, that’s that really. Nice relationship that they may develop within the school. So in the education factor, it’s about feeling valued as an individual, but it’s really important to remember that for teachers, they have like an intimate relationship with your child’s brain.
They know how the child learns, right? No one else is interested in sentence beginning. No one else is interested in how they set out their paragraph. Yeah. The teacher knows and they know what the capacity is. Okay, so, so with the education factor, it’s, again, it’s not, if your child is scoring high on the education factor, they, they don’t necessarily have to be scoring the highest marks in the school, but it might just be that connection that you are talking about, where they feel valued as an individual within that school.
Yes. Again, remember the terms navigation and negotiation. So, so far you can see how a child has to learn the skills of navigation and negotiation in each of these contexts of relationships. Okay. The next one is the peer factor. And the peer factor is a really important one for developing morality because in the peer factor, we tend to hang out in groups of people who are similar to us.
We look for commonality. Yep. We get our best friends from that. And little kids are the same in early kindy. They might be going, I wanna hang out with the girl because she’s got the same color hair as. or it might be that I wanna hang out with him because he plays soccer as well. Mm-hmm. . So the peer factor is sort of linked with what’s common.
And by hanging out with some people that are common, you stop being the main person in everyone’s world, you become part of a group and you have to fight for recognition. And peers for children can be unkind. Yeah. Because they’re all learning to navigate and negoti. Oh, absolutely. Especially in the playground.
Oh my goodness, . I don’t know how resilient I’d be if I backtracked into childhood again. And I think that’s a really interesting point about this one. Again, you know, having a strong, if with this factor being strong, there will still be conflict and there should be conflict as well as harmony. In a peer group.
And I think that’s a great thing for us parents to remember that they are gonna have, you know, friendship fires and JI barges. And it’s not to say that there’s something wrong with that particular factor. No, and I think this is where as parents, we can sort of see sometimes the conflict that a child has with their friendship groups as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Okay. Our research shows that for adults who are resilient in the workplace and difficult workplaces have had. Difficult peer relationships earlier on in their life. Right. So again, you know, this is an opportunity, not a threat. We don’t want our kids to be left out. We don’t want them to have fights with their friends, but it’s inevitable because all of the children are learning to navigate and negotiate.
Yeah. And though that hurt. Is, uh, a helpful experience for them to manage, to learn compassion for others. So this is why the morality and peer group factors are really linked. Yep. The morality is about the ability to have compassion for another. Um, those people who are AOR are very narcissistic and stay in their own world and use friends.
So what we want is a child who. Able to see things from another’s perspective and have compassion for another, and they learn that by often being left out or feeling disappointed, which they get from peers. Okay. And the final two factors that we can draw on to build a child’s resilience, what are they?
So there’s the community factor, and in the community factor we have from our research kids who are involved in a wider community, a community such as a soccer club or a scouting group, or a Cubs or something. But it might be a church group, it might be, um, a neighborhood. A group there where there’s a commonality in values, right?
Churches generally have got access to pretty much all of the factors, because quite often families and peers and education and skills are linked within those communities, and so quite often you find in a church group are higher level of resilience for, for kids who are brought up in those environ. . And so there is also a sense of, um, kindness and reaching out, which is also linked Yeah.
In the community factor. But likewise, I think commonalities like hobbies, for example, can be really great for kids as well. Whether it be sporting art, drama, Yes. Et cetera. Okay. And that hobbies are often linked to a community. Yeah. So you might have an art community, you might have a sport community, but remember too, this is the community factor is where.
Your nanny belongs, right? The community factor is imagine an adult at your child’s 21st who they invite, and it could be the beloved nanny or the beautiful person that’s been part of their life. Yeah, that’s a great analogy. The last one is the money factor, and this is one of the hardest ones to actually start applying because those of us who have, you know, a decent amount of money coming into the house, it actually works against us for resilience.
because the kids who have a strong resilience because of their money factor are actually from families where there’s a battle with money but not a poverty. So when I say a battle, it may be that they don’t get everything that they want, that they have to wait and they have to learn to save, and they have to think about how to budget.
And they don’t get everything as soon as they desire it. It might be that they wait for birthdays and Christmas. It’s so funny, I have the strongest memory of this stuff, Toy Womba, when I was a kid that I was just desperate for and it was $30 and my mum paid $10 and put it on lay and it was behind the counter and I had to save and do jobs and do all this work, and I just imagined this.
Sitting behind the counter. It was doing my head in, but I remember that it was such a great lesson. I’m so grateful that my parents didn’t just, you know, spoil me and buy the Womba. That’s a great example, a really good example because not only were you learning to spend the money, but you were learning to earn the money.
So that earning and spending is a bit like giving and taking. When you earn, you give to society, when you spend, you take from society. So this is a really lovely lesson. Of navigation and negotiation.
So that’s our donor. And what you’re saying is these seven factors are all areas that our children will draw their resilience from. So those words, I can, I am, I have, will be filled with optimistic and, and, and powerful phrases. What I find fascinating is that your teaching. Ask us to focus on their strong areas because the parent in me looks at those and, and straight away I go for the ones where my kids are weakest in.
I’m like, Right, okay. We need to focus on my daughter, for example, her peer group. I’m like, Okay, we need to focus on Charla and her peer group. But actually what you are going to tell us, I believe is that No, just focus on the three strongest segments of the donut. Yes, that’s exactly right. Why? Well, it’s the easiest way to go for one, two.
We want to develop. I have. I am. And I can. We don’t wanna develop. I have not, and I can. And I, I am not, We want to develop the skills and the, the ideas in our child’s brain of those factors that are, or the internal. Thoughts that they can do? Oh my gosh, I just got goosebumps because I just realize that I do the complete opposite with my kids, and I hope there’s some mums listening that are also feeling the same, where I constantly am focusing on what my kids need to work on.
Being like, Oh, well, your, your sports are fine. You’re really good at sports. So just, I’m not even thinking about. And I’m just realizing that, that that is shaping that I cannot, I have not. That’s right. Okay. This is, this is huge. Yes, it is actually. Because I think that notion that we’ve gotta try and make them do everything well is, is not, not helpful because none of us do.
Mm. But if we actually work with, with where the three factors are going strong, you’ll find it in each of those factors, a set of relationships. That are going to breathe life into your child. One, if you’ve got a strong factor, say a skill factor that is going so well, you’re likely to have that your child having good relationships that are going to be more positive, more optimistic, um, more intentional because they’re liked in that area and that child then learns how to navigate and negotiate well, having had the benefit of the doubt, but they’re also likely to have a conflict.
And solve the conflict in the best areas. So I talk about finding your top three. So when your child is struggling, And you’re noticing that they’re becoming clingy and they’re not as adaptable and they’re not able to, to cope with the amount of changes in their life. And you just see when a child loses their spark, you know, when I always say to my husband, Oh look, you know, His cup is so full at the moment, and then they go through phases where you just see that something’s bothering them and they’re struggling.
So what you are saying is those are the times you need to double down on the factors that they’re strong in. This is correct. So when you double down in the factors that they’re strong in the best way to do it, and the easiest way to do it is to create donut moments. Okay? And donut moments is when you get your magical triangle of three factors all at the one.
Can you give some examples, some real life examples of, of this? Okay. Well, I had a donut moment today. I’m a grandmother. I have a three year old. I have also a very good friend’s daughter who is also got a three year old. So today we went off to cock two Island on the ferry with their scooter. So as we’re going there, this is their, both of those three year old, they’re good friends together.
So that’s their friend factor. There’s a community factor here because this is a good friend. We’re not related to each other, but we’ve been friends a long time. So we’re in our local community. We’re going off and we are going to do something together. So that’s a community factor or a neighbor factor.
And the last one is skill. These kids are getting good at their at Scootering and they’re scootering all around Cockatoo Island, which is, I just like to say, is an awesome place to take three year olds. Now for that, those kids have just had. Such a boost to their resilience. They fell off all the time.
None of them, neither of them cried. They took turns with working out who was going to go over different jumps cuz they found some little bumps that they could do, which was quite interesting. They found tunnels and by the end of it, All of us were just laughing and laughing on the ferry to come home.
Was that a way of building resilience? Absolutely. I think what’s really encouraging about your model is that as a parent, it doesn’t just all fall onto us. You know, you look at all these seven factors and kids can be drawing resilience from everywhere around them. And so even if we go through times where we are just not being our best self, or we go through our own traumas, be it financial relationship, breakups, moving house work stresses that you can really set up your environment for your children so that they have these other factors or these wells.
Of these seven areas that they can focus on and that you can kind of, I guess, look for support as well in raising your kids. Yes, and this is where as parents of young children, one of the best things you can do is to start setting up other people around you that care for your child and are interested in your child.
quite often we can get caught up with relationships that are a bit competitive. As my child’s doing this, I, no, my child, your child isn’t doing that sort of deal. Ditch those ones. Find ones where you are just both on the same team. Yeah, and I think in this digital age, some of those. Local community, parent groups are fantastic for, I often will see on there a mum reaching out, going, Hey, I’m going to this park tomorrow.
Does anyone wanna meet up with their kids? You know, and not being afraid to put your hand up and put yourself out there to, to connect with other like-minded parents I think is really great. Now let’s wrap up with some practical strategies for us parents. And I wanna break up into the, not to five, the six to 12 and the teenage years.
Some. Just some practical parenting strategies we can do to just help shape resilience and build that resilience bar. You, you know, we spoke about the pores early on in the, in the not to five, what are some other ones? I think in the not to five it’s about, um, making sure that you are as an adult nested in your own don, right?
So the not to five. Is really important, um, that the parents are well connected. Oftentimes when you’ve got young children, it just feels like your world has just got so small, you know, you’ve missed out on work, you’re not seeing your work colleagues, you’re not going out for drinks with people anymore.
Um, and going to a movie is just like a major episode. So this is where you go, Okay, how can I adjust? Yeah, and bring in more people into my world. Under fives, quite often people go back to work and don’t know the environment that their children are in, so they still hold onto their working connections.
It isn’t often until they’re a little bit older and the kids are at school that the rubber hits the road and it’s much harder to do the. I also think as a working mom, the daycare center and the preschool that you’re in, you know, do turn up to those sometimes awkward social events that they arrange. I remember the first one I went to, I didn’t know anyone there, and you have this awkward feeling about you, but of course you end up going, Oh, you are so and so’s mom.
You know, my little one mentions you. Let’s swap numbers and. You know, go for a play date soon. I, I do encourage moms, as awkward as it might be to step out into those little groups, because as the kids get older, they become even more important. That’s right. What about the five or the six to 12? The six to 12 is when the child’s at school.
Can I encourage everybody who has a new child starting school is to actually spend some time to meet other parents at the gate? Yeah. Because those are the parents that you’re going to have. To connect with for the next six years. and it’s really important that you get to know how the families are and what the, what the families are doing and become a community.
What about some strategies as well with the kids and you, the way you parent the kids? I mean, I always like to create a little bit of stress that’s appropriate for their age and stage. And one example I’ll give is if we sign up for an activity for the term, whether they, like, if they wanted to sign up to it, two weeks in, they wanna.
I say, no, we’ve signed up for the term you are going, I know that’s an example of, of that appropriate stress. Yeah. Would you agree with that? And have you got other, I guess, parenting strategies? One of the things I think for that age group for six to 12 year olds is again, is that skill factor, because during that age group, they’re starting to do a lot of mastery with boys.
It’s that repetitive. Bouncing a ball, repetitive tapping or repetitive things, that becomes annoying, but it’s really good for them. Um, it’s also brain development that’s going on for girls. There’s a lot of that, you know, repetitive handstands going around, getting to know what their bodies are doing, and that stuff is so useful for them.
What children need at that time is not to. So much organized things, which is kind of counterintuitive, right? Yeah. Cause you’re trying to master these skills with activities. Why do you say not so much structured stuff? So when I say organized things, so if you’ve got something on every afternoon that the child’s going to guilty, Yeah.
Then they’re not going to be able to have the times when they’re building the skills on the, on their own, in their backyard. Doing it over and over again. It may be that you create space where they can have that mastery, where they learn it themselves. So it’s intrinsic by all means. If they’re involved in gymnastics, let them go to gymnastics.
Don’t let them give up unless they’ve, you know, got through to the end of their term and they what they’ve committed to. Yeah. But it let the same time give them space in their day to practice. On their eye, um, and let them do that mastery. So I always say to people, make sure that you haven’t got too many things.
The child that is so overly scheduled gets to a point. Bit like as adults, who goes, I don’t know what to do cause I’ve answered all my emails. I dunno what to do now. Because it’s very reactionary stuff. Yeah. Okay. Let them have some space in their, in their day where they can go, I’m bored, mom. I’m bored.
And go practice your handstands. Oh, okay. I can do that. And what about teenagers where we are seeing, you know, such a massive use of screens and social media and gaming, How can we, how can we as parents help our teenagers raise that resilience bar? Okay, so when I said from six to 12 year olds, try not to schedule them so much.
Teenagers. Mm-hmm. , It’s time to schedule them.
we’re gonna a boot camp. 5:00 AM You’re up, . Yeah, I love it. Okay. Why’s that? Teenagers left to their own devices will become very hard to shift off things that are unhealthy. So, So teenagers left to their own devices will just do, uh, you know, immediate. They’ll get onto their phones, they’ll get onto the iPads, the computers, they’ll be gaming.
So we have a huge difficulties with kids with gaming, and the difficulties with gaming is that they’re really honing in on their skill factor, which is great, but they’re excluding all of the other factors. Yeah. Okay. So a child. In their teenage years, it would be great if they are playing a musical instrument and they’re in a band, they are involved in their soccer and their training.
They are involved with a community event. They might go to the youth group down the road and so on, and they have events that they’re into all the time. And if there’s camps going on that they go to camps where they learn skills. The more skills that are connected to peers that are connected to community people, the better.
Because in teenage years, they don’t like their parents. And in teenage years, the opportunity of connecting with other adults outside of the family is really awesome. And those other adults are outside of the family who are into the sport that they’re interested in their coach, their the guy that does the sailing or that they’re into some quirky thing that they like to do.
And there’s another person who likes to do that and they develop that relationship over. Yep. And the quirky thing might be, I was just thinking the other day of a kid who, um, was into stacking and are they stack cup? As fast as they can. Ah, and it’s a sport. That’s hilarious. My brother bred homing pigeons as a teenager.
Like what an out there thing for , you know, a young boy to do, but, But that’s what he did. Lynn, it’s been so enlightening speaking to you. I think that there’s been some real game changing. Tips that you’ve given here, particularly around focusing on the strengths that our kids have and really doubling down on that and that the really, the foundation of resilience comes from that connection, not just to us as parents, but to that wider community.
And, and the more we can connect with the special people around us, with our kids, the more loved, supported, secure, and safe they’re gonna feel. Thank you so much. Thank you. It’s a pleasure.
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