Independent, Connected, and Resilient Children Must Be Taught to Learn
The following is adapted from Resilience Parenting by Chris and Holly Santillo.
We all want our children to succeed. Where this desire goes astray, however, is trying to protect children from failure. As adults, we know that failure is often the best teacher; the lessons we learn in moments of defeat reverberate with lasting constructive effects.
Therefore, it’s safe to say that instead of protecting our children from failure, we can serve them better by imparting the knowledge they need to protect themselves.
Our responsibility as parents is to teach our children how to learn in every type of situation they might face. Doing so cultivates faith in their ability to learn and a desire to do so. It also helps our children be more independent, connected, and resilient.
Let’s take a look at how teaching children to learn manifests those three traits.
Learning and Independence
To be independent, you must be able to take care of yourself. You need to have what it takes to stand on your own two feet and do what is required of you without help.
You must possess the means to find your own answers to the questions that vex you and guide yourself through your days. Accomplishing independence, therefore, requires you to know much and be confident in your ability to learn what you don’t yet know.
For our children to have independence as adults, they must accumulate a tremendous amount of information and skills during their childhood. They must assimilate topics as prosaic as how to manage a budget, master a recipe, and develop a hygiene routine.
They must also learn more sophisticated skills, like how to reconcile an interpersonal conflict, master their impulses, and develop a cohesive value set.
If we create a childhood that facilitates the gathering and processing of this information, the result will be young adults who are prepared to handle life’s challenges.
There will always be challenges in life, however, that exceed our children’s experience. In order for them to conquer these obstacles, we must teach them to believe they can master the unknown. How well they think they can obtain necessary knowledge, no matter how impossible the task seems, derives from their relationship with learning.
By helping our children develop a love for gathering and processing new information and skills, we set them up for success in whatever endeavors they choose.
Rather than being stumbling blocks, their challenges will become stepping-stones to climb — and we all know how much children love to climb! Without a healthy relationship with learning, children encounter a new challenge and conclusively say, “I don’t know how to do that.” Our independent children will add, “But I can learn how.”
Learning and Connectedness
If learning has the power to create independence, can it also lead to connectedness?
The answer is yes. You see, seeking knowledge and connecting with other people are inextricably linked. While it is admirable to seek one’s own answers to life’s questions, being connected with others well enough to benefit from their wisdom has its perks.
Learning effectively often requires us to find teachers and mentors to help us. Our ability to connect with these human resources will largely determine our ability to learn.
Ironically, connecting with other people also rests on our ability to learn about them.
When we chat with another person, it is not solely the content of the conversation that stimulates connection. The process of engaging someone with an outlook of learning, an abundance of curiosity, creates a reciprocal bond with them.
In other words, by merely asking insightful questions of other people and actively listening to their answers, we naturally establish connections with them.
In so doing, we cyclically form the basis for future learning.
Along with seeking answers from trusted mentors and approaching conversations with curiosity, there is one more element of learning that leads to connectedness: humility.
We want to approach learning from others with an open mind. In this way, we not only improve our ability to absorb what they have to teach us, but we also lower the social barriers humans tend to construct around themselves. By being humble in our learning, we vastly improve our ability to connect with the people around us.
While removing barriers by learning about the people around us, humbly seeking their insights and guidance, we develop a network of connections. The reciprocal nature of this process makes for a tight weave of interrelations that can empower, inspire, and support us. As we move into building resilience, this network will serve us well.
Learning and Resilience
Resilience is constructed of strength, adaptability, and recovery.
How is learning linked to these qualities?
Strength is straightforward. Sir Francis Bacon is attributed with penning the famous line “Knowledge is power.”
We affirm the notion that the possession of information and skills lends a sense of strength to human existence. It is a tool for kings as well as babies. One need only contemplate the development of an infant to discover how rapidly the possession of knowledge elevates the power of a person, however small.
It is not merely the static possessive strength of knowledge that develops resilience, however. The essence of learning truly lies with adaptability. When we are on a path that becomes untenable, our ability to adjust hinges on two aspects of learning.
First, in order to ascertain how to best change course, we must be able to nimbly zigzag from one known possibility to another in order to assess the available options.
Second, and arguably more important than the ability to mentally sift through known possibilities, is possessing the flexibility of mind to seek answers that are yet unknown.
This second aspect of adaptability depends on whether we possess the power and desire to engage with resources that will broaden our perspective.
These resources, in essence, are the experiences of people who have gone before us, presented either in written, physical, or spoken form. If we consciously open our minds to the wisdom of others, then we significantly increase our ability to bend rather than break when challenged with the unknown. Conversely, holding a cloistered view of the world creates rigidity, an inability to flex and change with varying circumstances.
In the event of a breakdown, learning will aid recovery in a number of ways, including the same two avenues already defined for adaptability. Finding answers within one’s existing knowledge set and opening one’s mind to alternatives from other sources provide a powerful antidote to feelings of defeat.
Beyond this, there is a third method of recovery that we build upon our connections.
As discussed earlier, learning facilitates building connections that can create a support network. In the case that circumstances lead us to fall flat and we need help bouncing back, our connections will provide a safety net, either through advice or direct aid.
Whether we have been shunned by a friend, fired from a job, or suffered an illness or the loss of a loved one, it is the quality of our network that will enable us to recover. We must be proficient in learning if we are to have this resource for resilience.
For more advice on bolstering your child’s independence, connectedness, and resilience through learning, you can find Resilience Parenting on Amazon.
Chris Santillo is the founder and head instructor at Potomac Kempo, a martial arts studio with four locations in Alexandria, Virginia. Holly is the founding conductor of Mount Vernon Children’s Choir and a Senior Instructor at Potomac Kempo. Together, they have been working with and educating children for more than thirty-five years. Chris has a degree in computer science from Harvey Mudd College and an MBA from Georgetown University; Holly has a degree in anthropology from Willamette University. As of the date of publication, they are on a sabbatical, nomadically exploring the world with their three children. Visit ResilienceParenting.info for more information about the book, PotomacKempo.com to learn more about their martial arts studios, and FiveBackpacks.family to read about their travels. This article is adapted from their book, Resilience Parenting.
