Resiliency and Mental Toughness

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Our kids need to see us persevering, showing some grit in life.

I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Danny Huerta and Danny. How did you demonstrate, model, show your children resilience and perseverance? Do you have any stories that come to mind?

Yeah, I mean, we started early, early. We would say, let's try it again. Let's just try it again. And that's part of perseverance.

It's that mindset that you can try things again. There's a rewind button and there's an opportunity to get right back up and try it again.

And so it was with building things, it was with hiking activities that we did.

I remember one of our first hikes with our kids. They were really young. We started camping pretty early on in their lives.

And that's perseverance in itself. With young kids, they feel like it's super long and it's cold at night.

And a lot of built-in opportunities to persevere when you go camping.

There are. Yeah. And there was this one hike that was about a mile long. It was hanging like. Beautiful.

Oh, beautiful. Yeah, area. They're pretty young. And about halfway through my son said, I don't want to go anymore. I'm done.

When is this over, Dad? It's too long. And I said, huh? We set out to do this hike.

And I knew it wasn't that long. And I knew it was a moment for him that he was just kind of boring, but he needed to expand it a bit.

Just his experience as a young boy. And I said, hey, you know, at the end, it's going to be so satisfying.

You're going to see, I'm going to take some great pictures and we get back. We're going to be going to pizza place and having a great time of celebration that we made it from beginning to end on the goal that we set today.

And he said, Dad, I said, well, you know what? Let's just rest here for a moment. Let's reset. And then we'll get there.

We'll just take one step at a time and let me know where Russ makes sense for you and let's figure it out.

So then we kept going and we got to the top and he absolutely loved it. And then that energized him on the way down.

Yeah. And then at the pizza place, the restaurant, we kind of reflected on it. Man, it felt like we just all wanted to kind of give up.

So it was hard. We pushed through it. Man, let's celebrate that. I wonder other places in life where that'll be the case.

And so we were able to reset to that memory as they got older and several other places in their life.

We just had this pause for a moment and say, wait, it's tempting to just give up right now on whatever that is, whether it's a sport or something else.

Let's see what's there. Let's take the adventure. There's no perfection needed here. You're just growing.

So why not? Let's just keep trying.

Yeah, that's great. And we're going to move now to a portion of focus on the family with Jim daily in which Jim was talking to Kathy Cook, Dr. Kathy Cook.

She is a great communicator, has such a heart for families and kids. And she shared about this topic of perseverance and resilience.

Does temperament even play a role in that? Do we create the worried child or is that something that's part nature, partner true?

I would say both, you know, there is a DNA component to anxiety and stress and that bounce back ability. Certainly.

But I want parents and grandparents and caregivers to own what is ours to own and have we created children who are so fearful that they won't grow.

And that would be sad. Resiliency is necessary if we're going to grow and mature and learn and succeed and develop into the people God wanted us to be when he chosen us love to make us us.

Yeah, I mean, you know, you look at all the character of God. Resiliency has to be from him.

Oh, yes.

You know, just said ability to, you know, Jesus Christ above the storm in front of you, right? Hey guys, calm down. I got this.

Paul, Paul, Daniel, Esther, there's just so many heroes of the faith, Moses, who didn't give up and persevered because they believed in their purpose.

They believed in the God of the Bible and the truth that he was proclaiming over them.

Let's let's hit for the parents, you know, sometimes intentionality and parenting is tough. We're busy.

But the benefits of resiliency hit those.

Oh, thank you. So general success, general growth, freedom to risk, because if we don't risk, we don't grow. That's really important.

Fewer mental health issues. There's research that says that resilient children will be angry and stressed. They'll feel pain, but they're not defined by that. Isn't that precious?

It's perfect. Yeah, that's exactly what you want. That's what I hear is healthy.

The problem solving would be another one to mention, because if you're resilient, you don't want to stay down in the valley.

You want to try again to make the soccer team or to play the piano piece better. So you learn to strategize.

Yeah.

You learned what got in the way that you could avoid to practice differently and who doesn't want children who are independently able to problem solve, not without a mom being supportive or a dad being available.

But on our own, to be able to get out of the mess we're in, precious.

And the reason I framed it that way is that there's so many things that a parent has to be aware of to do.

I would think building resiliency into your children should maybe take first place.

I'm trying to think spiritual development, obviously, but when you're looking at where do eyes a parent become more intentional.

I think this would be one, certainly the top three you should be intentional about.

Well, preach it.

Yes.

And I appreciate that so much.

That's why I wrote a whole book on it.

Right. Because you know what?

It starts as a choice.

Like a child learns to walk, falls down.

And we don't say bad girl.

We don't say don't try again for five years until they'll be privileged.

We know they're going to fall down.

We take pictures and videos and break to everybody that our children are growing up, right?

So we expect them to have a little bit of trauma there.

So it starts as a choice to stand up.

The more often you choose to be resilient, don't likely that it becomes an ability and then it's a part of character.

We don't think about being resilient.

We are resilient.

Right.

And that changes you when it's a part of your spirit, a part of your heart.

What is the key to resiliency?

Parents.

It really is that simple.

It really is.

How do we perform it well or not perform it well then?

Yeah.

You know, Jim, first of all, I don't say that lightly.

You know, I love being here with you on focus and every parent and grandparent listening wants to be the very best that they can be.

We need to be resilient.

It starts with the parent not staying down in his valley.

So modeling it.

Absolutely modeling it.

And expecting it of yourself and risking and trying again and letting your children know that you're imperfect and you're growing and you're striving.

You're going after the things that are for you and you're not walking toward the things that are unrealistic.

So do we model responsibility?

Do we model care and concern?

Well, Danny, we can talk about resiliency here.

For a long time.

Yeah.

It's fun to talk about this.

But how about a difficult time, maybe from your own life, where you've just had to kind of do a foot at a time, a step at a time.

Let's keep going.

When Kathy does such a great job of just talking about this topic, you can tell us her passion.

Yes.

One of the words that we used earlier with our kids was oopsie daisy.

Oh.

And they learned that one when they needed to try again, oopsie daisy.

So I just want to throw that in.

But there was a time, as you know, we've talked around the show that I all of a sudden was thrust back into school.

And this was the Sidney program, this to be a psychologist.

And it was a time where I told the kids, man, this is going to be a tough season for us.

And what do you guys think?

Can we do this as a family?

It's not just for me.

This is a family.

There are going to be some sacrifices here.

And my kids were so awesome to hear them say, Dad, we have to do homework.

We'll do it with you.

They came up with creative ideas as we as a family looked at adversity in front of us.

It's something that was going to be challenging for us.

And they became a part of the problem solving.

And one of our models was there's always a solution to everything, even death.

Jesus provided that solution.

So there's always a solution.

We got to look for it.

And in this case, they brought that right back to me.

They said, Dad, there's always a solution to everything.

We're going to free this out.

We're on your side and your court.

It's not going to be perfect.

But we can find some creative ways to spend time together.

Let's do this.

And they were so encouraging.

As a family, I encourage you to look at what is the challenge in front of you

and begin to talk about.

How is a family do we conquer that together?

And if you're in the midst of a challenge with your child,

and you're needing to persevere through that, find a community of parents.

Have other parents around you that can pray for you.

They can help you persevere through the challenges because it is absolutely worth it.

And there is repair waiting for you in that relationship.

That's good advice.

And I'm going to point you to Dr. Kathy Cook's wonderful book called Resilient Kids,

Raising Them To Embrace Life With Confidence.

Danny's illustration kind of reflected how you can cultivate that kind of a perspective.

And it's so wonderful when that happens.

It takes time and effort and intentionality and a presence of mind.

Get this book to help you kind of be ready for adversity and the opportunities to shine

and to show up with resilience.

The book is available to you for a donation of any amount to focus on the family today.

We've got it.

Make a donation.

We'll send it to you.

And the details are in the show notes.

And we haven't talked about it lately, but we have a free age and stage E newsletter.

It's a terrific resource for you to be able to sign up.

And with just a little bit of data, we'll be able to send you customized content

for your journey with each of your children.

Let's say you have a 3, 8, and 15-year-old.

Those are all of the three very different ages.

Yes.

And you might remember what it was like to be parenting a three-year-old,

but we'll send you information anyway just to remind you

because your 15-year-old has taken all the oxygen in the room.

So in the middle child, the poor, the poor middle child.

So we'll send information to you on a weekly basis.

Danny, there's an annual kind of thing.

And it helps you look forward to the coming year.

And it's what to expect, what to build, and how to grow.

You get 10 pages specific to each child's age.

And grandparents can sign up for this age and stage experience as well.

That's great.

If you're involved in grandkids' lives, get signed up.

This is a terrific resource.

It's free. It's been years in the making.

We want you to have it.

So click the link in the notes to find out more.

Next time, we're going to hear a great conversation with Kay Weima

about practicing thankfulness and mercy and kindness

and how you can do that for your children and for those around you.

For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team,

I'm John Fuller, and thanks for joining us for the focus on the family,

Equipping Parents podcast.

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