Resilience Exercise

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

So the book is REALLY stressing the idea that building off of strengths is a MUCH better way to motivate children than isolating weaknesses. It makes a lot of sense, I mean looking at it as constantly highlighting difficulties really does put things into perspective...

Anyhoo, there is an exercise that is designed to help get us (the readers) into the right mindset...and I was just wondering what our different responses may be.

Islands of competence are things/skills that the child not only is good at, but also enjoys (like drawing, music, reading, sports, running, climbing, cooking, whatever).

It's possible to have things that the child is good at, but does not enjoy...and sometimes that can have meaning...I don't mean good at cleaning, who likes doing that...I mean perhaps good at something that SHOULD bring enjoyment.

So, make a list of at least 3 of your childs islands of competence.

Next to each item write ways in which you honor and reinforce these islands.

I'll be back in a bit to do Coley's ...firstly I'm not sure I can do it yet, and secondly a stinky bum is screaming for attention :rolleyes:

[peglem]

I'm going to wait til you do yours, but I have a few things in mind for Allie.

[Aspigander]

Well, I'm not a child, nor do I have one on the spectrum, but since I am on the spectrum and have some incompetence issues, let me see what I can come up with.

1. I always have been told I'm a good writer, and I think that's accurate. So I'll say one island of competence is writing.

To reinforce that? Well, I post here, which requires me to write (well, type actually, but same thing). Sometimes I'll post on the cat forum I frequent.

That's not three, but that's really the only thing I can think of at the moment.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

Lauren that's awesome!!!! ...you know we should all probably be doing this for ourselves too! Maybe even our spouses and everyone else in our lives...honoring and reinforcing can take many forms! Very eye opening!

Keep going though...you've got 1, see if you can list out some more islands...maybe you can improve on your reinforcements...this is where I think I'm stuck, which it the point so I'm going to just start...I've decided it'll be a 'working document'...

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

I think Coley has loads of islands...although I've come to the conclusion that I'm not doing so well. I'm just going to start, then begin working on them...maybe we can all do that and update here...

1. Coley is very creative and artistic. He sees beauty everywhere, sometimes in the simplest things. I love this about him! But not sure I highlight that for him very often. He loves painting and he loves crafts...particularly if he draws on his own imagination verus instruction.

When he was younger I got him all the supplies and an easel. He quickly outgrew that. We moved & reorganized & advanced things a few times to 'grow' with him. His things are now in the basement, our unfinished basement (at this moment). We've cleaned it up, set up 2 large tables and put all his supplies there for him. It's now a matter of out of sight out of mind, I think. Plus, That big empty table is like so many other surfaces in our house...it tends to 'collect' stuff. :(

I will talk to him about this today!

2. Coley is an amazing trouble-shooter. He's impressed me with this talent on MANY occations. Frankly, thinking back on it, I'm kinda surprised that he even offers ideas at all these days. I do a VERY poor job of encouraging this, never mind developing it. I do tell him it's good thinking, but I hardly ever take his suggestion...even if it won't result in the loss of a limb or something.

I am going to start actively engaging him in problem-solving, and I am going to start taking his suggestions, even when I know the outcome may not be ideal, as long as no harm will result. Just typing that is difficult...it shouldn't be, but is somehow...:cool:

3. Coley is a very good engineer and builder. Which I think in a lot of ways over-laps his trouble-shooting skills. We do encourage this well, I think, but probably could do a MUCH better job! He has lots of things to build with and he really enjoys helping Daddy to do home improvement type things. I do notice that DH squelches his desire to participate often...mostly because, well stuff needs to get done... For his b-day (feb) he got his first real tool set. It's a children's set, but it's fully functional. The rule is that he is not allowed to use it unless DH or I are around. It hasn't been used yet...

I will talk to DH about priorities. Getting things fixed is important...developing Coley's abilities is MUCH more important. We need to take the time to show him how to use his tools, and encourage him to participate in the household projects.

There are more I can think of, but these I would say, are the most obvious. Saddly we are not doing well, so you could imagine the less obvious...I feel like a shmuck!

Here's what I mean: Coley has expressed a desire to learn to play the piano on several occations. Coinsidently, he had an opportunity to sit at the piano with piano instructer (a family friend) at Christmas time. Coley insisted on learning Feliz Navidad. The instructer pulled DH aside later and told him we should get him lessons....that's about where that stands.

For god sakes I can't even get him to get dressed in a reasonable amount of time...where do we find the time, never mind the money with the house issues? But thinking about this, I know we can't do everything, but surely we can do more than nothing...and so it begins.

[milivica]

Kristen,

What book? I don't understand the original post. Maybe I'm hung up on the word resilience, you can't build that without productive uncertainty (but not anxiety). You don't build resilience in your 'comfort zone' or things you're competent in. I'm lost.

[roadracer]

I am not sure if I understand it or not also, but I will give a example of the way I am understanding this, just let me know if it is correct.

A part of my islands of competence for me would be cycling/racing.

So when I started out, to build off the strength and also to be able to make friends I joined the local cycling club, started racing, and got invited to join my first team.
So I used the cycling to bridge the gap to be able to break out of my comfort zone to be able to make some friends (before that I didn't have any) So would this be building off your strengths? or resilence?
unfortunately I haven't done anything like that since to make any friends outside of cycling.
Other things I am good at is I am a expert with computers, the two computers I have now I built myself, custom modifying many parts to make it look awesome, and make it super fast. 3rd is photography, I am pretty creative at setting up photos, although I really dont know how good my photos are.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

RR, That's AWESOME! And yes, EXACTLY right!

The idea is to keep building too.

Like: once you feel comfortable with the cycling friends, perhaps you could do something like extend an invitation for a ride & lunch or something outside the parameters you're in now.

With the PCs, perhaps you could also find a way to meet more people...maybe begin volunteering to fix/upgrade computers for kids that have an interest in learning your skills...maybe even kids like you????

Photography...hmmmm...we've seen them, they are AWESOME! I love them...maybe join a photo glub or something...or maybe try to bring your skill up another notch somehow (not that I think you need it - seriously!) but since you already doubt your skill there (a class? a book?)...find a way to raise your confidence in that area before using it as a foundation to something else, ya know.


Mili,
Ok, I'm going to try my 'new skill' here. I missed an opportunity with Coley this morning, dang! Thought of it after he left...oh well!

New way: Well, it seems that you have missed some important information. How do you think you could avoid that in the future? LOL! :D

Old way: Your attendance lately is poor. You need to be here more often to keep up. I can't be keeping you up to date all the time, it's really not fair to me or the others here who take the time...gak! that's bad huh!

Ok, long story short, Grimey & I are reading some books on parenting for resilence. I think you saw that post...you commented on Hold onto your Kids...Right now we are reading "Raising a self-disciplined child"...the exercise above is mentioned in the book.

I finished last night...it was AWESOME, going to write down some important points and move on...not sure which to pick up next.

[tgrimes]

You must have flipped back and forth on these books, I saw your other post but I didn't like the first book, so I only read the resiliency book, but I want to tell you about something I saw today in the chapter about adjusting things to the kids temperament... (it starts on page 123)
This was a pretty good example, about a mom who kept bringing her kid to the store and expecting her not to have a tantrum, then she kept using advice other people had given, no luck, but kept bringing her back, figuring she was the age she had to learn and then getting angry when che cried, whether it was in the store or the car when she had to leave the store, you get the idea.
Anyway, I liked how the author explained not so much that it wasn't time yet, even though other kids years younger could be able to do it, but convinced her that having that as a goal was causing more problems in their relationship than it was actual successful attempts. I really liked this point.
One of my most frequent struggles is over 'when is it time to just lower the bar?' because we have so much pressure all the time to raise the bar, with teachers or proffessionals always saying "children live up to their expectations, so you must have high expectations..." Ugh, I hate that one.
So, that to me was the best part of the book, it should have been in the first chapter, it showed the author had some common sense about not expecting goals to happen according to age. He kept choosing wording that showed he felt it was a good 4 - year spread between different personality types, so that was a pretty wide spread and so true!

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

I only read the self-disiplined child. I think I read that same example in this book too, but it's not on 123...was the 'solution' to bring her to smaller stores as practice? Like no purpose other than to 'train' her.

I really liked the book...didn't want it to end actually...once it 'clicked' and I saw the examples differently.

But, I don't know if I could jump into another Brooks book right away, so I think I want to read Genius next. Did you get that one?

I have 3 books to read, plus the RDI book I didn't finish...but I've already got a list of others I want to order...have you ever seen the Love & Logic books?

As for knowing when to 'lower' the bar...I think the resounding message in the book I read was that in most cases the child was being stifled...in that particular example the message was that the mom wasn't helping her daughter develope the skills, like in the other examples too...the way she was going about it, her method was wrong...not that going to the store was 'too high' of an expectation, but that because she has 'other' issues (as did most of the kids) her approach was wrong, right?

It's about giving them the right tools and showing them how to use them...not about teaching them to do things.

So I think when a child is struggling, the idea is to figure out what tool they are missing and get that in place...the goal still remains.

[Kristen (ColeysMom)]

Alrighty Grimey, I started Genius!

I just popped in to say how much I'm LOVING this book...I haven't gotten very far but just had to come say how much I love it so far!

The author has just crushed the idea of our children having 'deficits' and basically explained how it's the school system that does!!!! :D

And is now in the process of explaining how alllllllllllll those things that we focus on as 'issues' are the exact opposite...that they are gifts to be nurtured and cheerished!

OMG! LOVE IT!

Btw, he defines genius as a persons special or unique gift/skill/attribute, not this notion that genius means that they are better or smarter than 99% of the world...everyone has genius, according to the author...and you wouldn't believe how important he paints non-typical triats...amazing!

[tgrimes]

I know they don't have this in the system, I will maybe go to the bookstore for that one but what is the other one you have... I can't find the original thread ?