Raising Mentally Strong Kids! Why and How?

The energy and the amusement of kids these days are extraordinary! They are being pampered to the utmost, experiencing life so close to perfection and safety. The fiction world exposed to kids shows the marvelous superheroes fighting injustice in the world. At the same time, they are being groomed in the confinement of safety walls. Sometimes, it is necessary to expose children to the struggles and hardships of life by introducing them to age-appropriate difficulties. Let’s discuss some aspects of the whys and hows of raising mentally strong kids.

Exposing Children to Problems

Exposing them to problems and failures can handle the forthcoming pressure of their adolescence to ease. We need to make our children aware of the age-appropriate turmoil that prevails in our life. Locking them from the brunt and rawness of the world is like deluding them to walk on a bed of roses. This would lead to disappointment and depression when they grow up.

If we could model them into becoming strong human beings right from childhood, it will offer fruitful results. Youngsters these days face a tremendous amount of pressure, stress, and competition. We need to build a strong foundation of resilience and tolerance in their growing years. Sadly the education system of recent times fails to concentrate in these areas.

Changing Parents’ Perception of Protecting Children

Kids tend to break the toys and their imaginative mind whirls around to play-act by destroying their belongings. We mostly condemn all these mischievous acts of our children. We consider breaking things to be a breach of discipline. As a result of this, parents abandon the kids from seeing violent movies thinking it could negatively impact a child. But a self-analysis on this reveals that we have always fed the children with stories of cheating crows, cunning cats, and jackals, etc. Does that mean there is an excuse for animals?

Parents protect their kids from any little defeat or frustration by giving them the utmost care. Any little deviation from this perfect world disrupts the child’s harmony and also the parents. Often they have this dire need to filter contents and messages to children to feed them positivity. We bring up our kids in an environment, where social pressure and conventions demand a perfect life for them. No delays in their mealtime, correct room temperatures for their comfort, hiding them from any mishappenings, monitoring their small mischievous acts, micro-managing their school works and activities, and filtering contents for viewing are some things parents tend to control. All this gives them the most secure life that any sense of adaptability or resilience the child could muster is hampered completely.

I think protecting them from any kind of sensitive issue would harm their internal abilities to fight failures and setbacks. Exposing them to bitterness slowly at the right age, and also subjecting them to little discomfort will help them mature and adapt to changes easily in their due course of life.

Focus on the Importance of Introducing Failures

Sometimes it is also important to introduce them to the hard truth of mortality and emotional breakdowns corresponding to their age. Some kids in the face of failure react weirdly and give up their goals. But their inner mind must have resolved the adversities to tackle this in the future. They instinctively understand the concept of failure, sadness, and disappointments to their potential. Thus, periodical exposure to situations like this can strengthen their wills to combat the future.

I have seen many kids fumble with petty failures, be it losing a toy to their siblings or getting isolated in a school team. And as they age, the list grows too! My son, while we play cricket at home to beat his boredom, would get upset about missing a ball and would refuse to continue the game. It will require a whole lot of lovely conversations and encouragement to amend his mood. That has made me deliberately induce the concept of failures in regular intervals and make him deal with it, to his abilities.

Child Mind Institute, a reputed research center for children’s mental health information, specifies the importance of introducing failures for kids. They also mention that “Only through trial and error can children become resilient adults.”

How to Expose them to Failures and Difficulties                  

There are many ways to expose children to failures and difficulties. We often block our kids from knowing the catastrophes and threats that prevail in real life. We have witnessed many tragedies where children have been victims in recent times. When hit by dangers in their adolescence, not knowing how to cope, they often suffer mental imbalance and depression. Thus, it is significant for the parents to discuss and unfold the harsh realities with children, corresponding to their age.

Sometimes, it is also important to stretch the kids out of their comfort zone to instill tolerance. Slightly delaying their mealtimes, engaging them in household errands, and allowing them to fight their own battles and problems can be practiced. Deliberately defeating the kids while playing with them will also impart the lesson of failures effectively.

The most effective way of trialing them to difficulties is by discussing situational challenges. Parents can throw difficult situations to them like questions and can analyze their way of reflecting upon it. It will help in building self-confidence as they will come up with solutions to resolve the issues. This is a way of preparing them to face their crisis bravely.

Nurture the Ability of Children to Manage Difficulties

This generation of children is born with a high level of intuition probably we grownups will not be able to reach at the age of 60. Making them aware of certain raw truths in a polished sense will not be harmful. Though they may seem naive, they are more intelligent and capable of grasping new information than we might think. The potential and determination they bring to the table are inexplicable.

They are naturally gifted with fighting instincts that parents may not comprehend. Exposing them to intermittent failures and struggles will strengthen their competency and aptitude to handle things.

 

Smart Ways of Parenting

I think we can consider parenting to be like walking on eggshells due to its increasing need for shielding and safeguarding the children from evils. The world has become so unsafe that there is no excuse for ignorance, irrespective of age. Hence, preparing children for the hurricane called life would no longer be out of the syllabus. It will help in instilling confidence and courage in children to hit back when rubbed the wrong way.

While we prepare them to face the darkness, we also need to feed them with the right dosage of positivity. This, in turn, helps in providing a balance to his or her outlook. We should make sure that they do not get skeptical about every stranger they meet. The world is expecting extroverted and accessible people in all facets of life. Therefore, socializing with all possible individuals within the allowed limits is the need of the hour. This could be a little polarizing, as we need to equip our children with the right amount of good and bad in our system.

After all, the world is not a very bad place to live when we know to carefully balance the extremes to our capabilities.

Lets us know your thoughts in the comment section. This is a difficult topic and we look forward to valuable discussion!