Sometimes the most common definition of resilience that people tend to bandy around
is something along the lines of, you know, our capacity to overcome adversity.
And I just - don't write that down - because it sucks as a definition by the way.
I think what we've done is we've tended to individualize resilience.
And you get a lot of, sort of, motivational speakers talking about resilience in
that highly individualized I-made-it-through-adversity kind of way.
And it makes great television and you know you get on Oprah, or used to get on Oprah.
But it's actually not scientifically true. what we're actually understanding
What we're actually understanding about resilience
is a far more complex story.
We obviously see themes appear
globally in what makes a particular child resilient. They repeat.
But it's an emerging story.
So I'm gonna suggest that there are nine things
that are more likely to predict resilience
And you know if you want to read about this
there is a book there's a I've written about this more it's from a clinical
point of view in a book called "Working with Children & Youth: the complex needs"
that's more the clinical side. More for parents and, sort of, educators and people
sort of more, you know, if you want a simpler read on this, it's called
"I Still Love You: nine things that troubled kids need from their parents."
But essentially what we're seeing is these patterns.
Kids seem to need structure and consequences in their lives. They also, by the way,
children seem to need, globally no surprise, parent-child connections.
But here's the interesting thing. Not just that.
I very often have unfortunately maybe shared the stage and people will say,
"Oh it's all about parent-child connections."
And the truth of the matter is when people are under stress,
that's not the case. All over the globe it's actually the minority opinion
that it's the primary caregiver who looks after the child during a stressful
period of life. Most cultures in this globe would think that that's a
ridiculous assumption - that the most stressed person in the child's family
life, the parent, is the one that then has to nurture the child.
The child will be passed around to all the aunties and potentially the uncles.
There'd be an emphasis on fathers and other resource people. And that's why really
what we're understanding is, the parent-child connection is one of the
mechanisms that makes us resilient but it's not the only one.
Number four - lots and lots of other strong relationships are super important
to children's psychosocial development.
I worked with a, there was a boy he was about 10 years old, very awkward.
He'd been raised in dire poverty.
His teeth were awful. He had hand-me-down clothing.
It was like you know he had a big target on him in the school that said pick on me, sort of thing,
or that type of thing. And though the school had done what they could to
try and keep him safe, this kid hated going to school.
So what he had done was he had adapted
and found his own pattern of resilience by hiding with the janitor
at lunch breaks and at the recess breaks.
Rather than going out on the playground where he didn't feel safe, he would hang out with the janitor.
And the janitor was this gruff old guy - like just salt of the earth,
down to earth kind of guy right - that would sweep the floors and mopped
the floors. He was really good with the kids. He was just kind of honest.
On the weekends he'd go out hunting moose or whatever - this is in the Maritimes right?
So he you know very sort of he just sort of easy to access
kind of guy. The kid loved being in his shadow. So the kid I suppose he hung out
by this guy for like a week or so, to protect himself, right? His adaptation,
his pathway, his navigation to the resources he needed. About after a week, the janitor
looks at this kid, and goes, and he had a bit of a sort of a Newfoundland brogue
or whatever, so I can't quite do it, so anyway he kind of says to the kid,
"Well bloody hell. If you're always going to be underfoot you might as well pick
up a mop and give me a hand." Now I don't know about occupational health and
safety laws and stuff like that. I'm sure he just broke every single one, right?
By having the kid help. But basically, the kid picks up the mop and begins to sort
of mop the floor, with the janitor, on the breaks. Now a whole bunch of things
magically happen in that case. The child begins to feel a genuine connection and
contribution to the welfare of this adult. He's actually being mentored by
this adult right? And what's also neat is his changing relationship with his other
peer group. Because let's face it. If you walk into us into a
public building, and someone is mopping, you have to be one mean little f'er if
you're gonna walk across that wet floor right? You tend to defer. So suddenly this kid,
who always was being jostled in the play in the playground, jostled in the
hallway, picked on and everything else, he's holding a mop. He's mopping the floor.
The kids do this around him. He literally parts them with his mop.
Now my point is that what you see there is a pattern where this kid was getting a
very powerful identity, a sense of efficacy or control, through that
relationship, not with his parent, who is a very stressed individual with addiction
problems and poverty and a lot of other stuff going on. The janitor had set
some structure, some consequences. The child had a sense of belonging -
number seven, in this world that had become his space finally. He had, in a sense,
a purpose to go to school again. I'm going to argue he even had a bit of social justice.
Finally people were treating him, the one who was mildly, quote-unquote
in his mind, disfigured, awkward-looking, the one who dressed poorly.
Suddenly he was being treated fairly, and what's more, he felt safe.
I could go on, literally for hours, telling you story after story after story like that
in which this matrix of these nine factors come together in a child's life.
Now, here's the interesting thing. These can all be facilitated by us -
by programs, by interventions, by good social policy, just like, by the way, it was
interesting this morning we heard a couple of people, I think, David, you
mentioned the adverse childhood experience studies and I think Dan also
sort of alluded to those. I'm sure everyone in the room is familiar with the
Adverse Childhood Experience Studies. Those 10 things that if it happened to
you before your 18th birthday, things like exposure to violence, sexual abuse,
victimization, a parent goes to jail, divorce, parent with mental illness, and
addiction, all those kinds of things right?
What's interesting about those...
Have you ever noticed that list though?
All 10 of those are preventable, social factors.
None of them are internal, individual factors.
Have you noticed that?
They can all be addressed by social policy.
In other words, if you want to address heart disease and diabetes and somatic
illnesses and a variety of other things which are the outcome of a high ACE score,
you can actually do that by using good social policy and good social interventions
interventions in a child's early life. Isn't that wild?
The same thing here.
All nine of these things that produce resilience are not only about the individual.
Now, if you did all nine of these things, you would probably produce
a child who's going to have a very much more positive attitude towards life,
who's gonna have, you know, going to be able to, sort of, have the robustness to
get through a crisis. If you added to this, by the way, mindfulness practices, if
you add to this a cognitive behavioral intervention that allowed the child to,
sort of, begin to sort of not misperceive and catastrophize their life when bad
things do happen, and you add all these things,
then you're getting essentially what it is that makes us resilient.
It's that combination of things.