Use Resilience Parenting To Raise Teenagers Who Are Ready For Life | Chris and Holly Santillo | Episode 81

Kids are struggling as they grow up and move out of their parents’ home. They just don’t have the resilience they need to handle the challenges life throws at them, even some of the simple things. Resilience parenting is a solution. Chris and Holly Santillo share ideas and strategies for parents to use in raising teenagers and parenting twenty-somethings in a way that makes them strong, happy, and resilient. Join them as they share these ideas with Sandy Fowler on this episode of the Mighty Parenting podcast.

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A Favorite Quote from the Show: 

“We need to raise our children to live like bamboo, deeply rooted but flexible in the wind.”

High Points of Our Conversation On Resilience Parenting:

Parents have the false belief that if their child is connected then they can’t be independent. Similarly, they believe if kids are independent then they can’t be connected. This isn’t an either or proposition therefore parents can promote both connection and independence.

Normalizing shy behavior encourages our children to seek attention this way. Doing so inhibits their ability to build resilience.

Resilience parenting means parents need to cultivate independence in kids. One part of this is helping them learn to manage their feelings then take forward-moving action.

We need to let our children know their feelings are normal and good. Besides simply telling them, we can share our own feelings and thoughts, particularly those of fear and inadequacy.

Part of resilience parenting is helping kids be connected to us. Therefore, we need to spend time with them in ways which foster that connection. This can happen through meaningful conversations, not simply logistical or transactional conversations. It can also happen non-verbally.

It is important to tell our children we want to be here with them. We can tell them this through both words and body language.

Resilience is being strong, adaptable, able to recover.

We need to foster independence and connectionIn in order to build resilience in our children.

A lesson to instill in our children: Failure does not define you. We often allow our own fears as parents to adversely impact our parenting. We push obstacles out of our teen’s way or don’t allow them to experience the consequences of their actions. This destroys their resilience.

We need to educate our children then allow our fear to give way to trust.

Above all we must teach our kids that fear is okay. We just don’t want it to rule us or cause us to miss out on opportunities.

If we always save our children then they will take outsized risks.

It’s easy to create the habit of telling our children what to do, not do, or how to do it. Instead we can use questions like:

• • What could happen?
  • How could you respond?
  • How could you handle that?
  • What are your options?
  • Who could support you?

Resources Mentioned in Show:

Resilience Parenting: Raising Resilient Children in an Era of Detachment and Dependence

Our Guests:

Chris Santillo is 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. Curre

To learn more or connect with our guests visit https://ResilienceParenting.info. Likewise, visit https://FiveBackpacks.family to read about their travels.