Understanding Resiliency

Simply defined, resiliency is the ability to bounce back from adversity. It involves several components, including the following:

• Mastery
• Connections
• Emotional Intensity

Gifted individuals, both children and adults, are hardwired in ways that present unique challenges to overall resiliency. And while these posts will take a look at some of the inherent problems facing the GT population, I do not want any reader to interpret this to mean that GT individuals are MORE prone to resiliency challenges. I would actually argue that the very nature of giftedness may serve as a well of internal resources helping improve resiliency for most. 

MASTERY

Mastery specifically refers to a person’s ability to understand and analyze the cause/effect relationship between effort and results. It involves how a child views his or her individual ability to master the environment; whether or not he or she believes that working hard will, in fact, lead to improved outcomes.

Mastery involves the attributes of optimism (the ability to see the glass as half-full and feel positive about the future), adaptability (the ability to change and adapt to environmental/situational changes), and self-efficacy (different from self-esteem, this specifically relates to a person’s belief that he or she has the ability to perform successfully in a given situation).

As seen from the definition above, there are several areas in which gifted kids may struggle related to the very nature of giftedness. Some of the more typical challenges may include the following:

Optimism -

• Feelings of inadequacy due to a mismatch between ability and previous achievements
• 2E situations
• Perfectionism and the belief that making errors means you are not gifted
• Fear of failing resulting in poor risk taking
• All or nothing belief structure (“I either know it all, or don’t know anything”)

Self-efficacy

• The belief that teachers/parents have unrealistically high expectations for performance
• Same rigidity, perfectionism, and fear of failure discussed above

Adaptability:

• Inflexible in thinking processes
• Intensities (you will see this come up a lot)
• Resistance to accepting help
• Resistance to change

As you can see, there are a lot of potential problems facing our gifted children related to the very nature of giftedness.

 

So what do we do to help? I think the answer is two-fold (as always). First, as parents and/or educators, we need to accept our own difficulties in these areas. Identify them, and work to consciously correct our inaccurate thinking. Reframe “normal” for ourselves. Then we need to help our children do the same. Talk with them about their feeling related to this domain – help them see where their thinking may be not only counterproductive, but just plan incorrect. Help them learn to recognize the times and ways in which their thoughts are inaccurate.

 

By doing this – by understanding mastery and the ways it can adversely impact kids, you are positioning yourself to act as an “emotional” coach for them – something that I believe will lead to improved outcomes.

CONNECTIONS

Connections refers to the ability to make meaningful relationships with peers and adults, and to derive support from these relationships. In short, it refers to the feeling of having people in your corner who “get you” and “have your back”. Although it is important for children to have actual support, the research is clear that perceived support is far more important with regards to this aspect of resiliency and protection factors.

—Building and having positive connections typically involves the attributes of trust (trusting that the people in your life will not abandon you), support (feeling that those most trusted in your life are supportive of you and your issues/endeavors), comfort (feeling comfortable around people and with your peers and adults), and tolerance (being accepting of others and their unique styles, thought processes and needs).Obviously, GT kids may run into a few barriers in these areas related to the basic characteristics of giftedness, including some of the following:

—Building Connections:

• —Like minded peers vs. typically developing peers
• Difficulties developing relationships in general related to giftedness
• Introverts vs extroverts

Imposter Syndrome and its impact

• —Perceived Support vs Real Support
• Rigid and narrow definitions of friendship, support, and/or expectations
• Adaptability issues like those discussed under Mastery

Tolerance

• OEs (intensities)
• —Rigid thinking (yes, this does keep coming up!)
• —Resistance to change

 

As you can see, this is another aspect of resiliency that can pose unique problems. So, how do we help? Like mastery, I think the answer starts with parents and/or educators understanding their own challenges with regards to building connections and Imposter Syndrome. We must reframe our difficulties, paying attention to any challenges we have with rigid thinking. As we do this for ourselves, we learn how to help our children do the same. Furthermore, by regularly looking inward at our own perceptions and behaviors, we cultivate an environment conducive to self-reflection and analysis. This environment, then, provides a risk free way for our children to do the same.

 

EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY

Emotional reactivity refers to how a child reacts emotionally to adversity or problems. We already know that Gifted Kids are highly intense. But this emotional reactivity, while actually a good thing, does bring with it the potential for difficulties in the area of resiliency. Some factors that impact a person’s overall emotional reactivity is the depth of their intensities, the time it takes them to emotionally bounce back from a set back, and the level of impairment the emotional intensity may cause.

Gifted children, being more intense than their non-gifted counterparts, have some unique challenges when it comes to emotional reactivity and intensity, including:

• Extreme Intensity
• Rigid thinking that makes recovery difficulty
• Lack of emotional tools

Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to help your child learn to manage their emotional intensities and reactions to events in their lives. Some of these include:

• Build an emotional tool bank
• Teach your child an emotional vocabulary to discuss feelings, and then discuss them regularly
• Discuss perfectionism and imposter syndrome issues openly and often
• Discuss and work through fear of failure concerns

As you can see, the beginnings of working on managing intensities starts with open and honest communications in this area – something that can be hard and scary for most parents and kids. 

Understanding the workings of resiliency is the first step toward assisting our children in developing this part of themselves.

What do you think?

Resiliency and The Girl Guide

Hi everyone! happy Monday. I wanted to take a moment this morning, and let you know about my latest release, THE GIRL GUIDE. Since this week’s topic is resiliency, I wanted to get things started by telling you about this book.

As many of  you know, this book is special to me. It contains everything I would – and have – told my girls about growing up a strong woman. At a time when women’s rights continue to be threatened in places in the world, and girls are getting bombarded with mixed messages about how they are supposed to act, I think the book has an important message.

Another reason I am thrilled for the book, is the advice contributed by some of the most amazing women I am privileged enough to call friends. Called “Notes to Self” in the book, these little nuggets are amazing. Thank you to the following list of women who shared their words and advice: Mona Chicks, Paula Earl, Rebekah Graham, Erin Hastedt, Stasia Kehow Ward, Jessi Kirby, Shelli Johannes, Heather McCorkle, Michelle McLean, Gretchen McNeil, Jen Merrill, Abby Mohaupt, Lisa Rivero, BE Sanderson, Melodye Shore, and my mom and grandmother. This group is nothing short of amazing! 

To celebrate the launch, Xpresso Book Tours is hosting a book blitz over the next couple of weeks, and with it, I am hosting a special Girl Guide giveaway. Before I get to the prizes, which include books and a gift certificate for either Amazon or Barnes and Noble, I want to tell you about a special photo opportunity associated with the giveaway…

As most of you know, Barnes and Noble picked up the Girl Guide for national distribution. In fact, it has end-cap display in the Teen section starting May 14. 

This is a first for any of my books to be picked up for large distribution and I am pretty dang giddy about it. SO, I am asking that you, my readers, find my book at your local Barnes and Noble, take a picture of it, and post it online somewhere. If you do, it counts as TEN ENTRIES for the giveaway.

Epic, yes????

Okay, so the rest of the specifics:

Giveaway runs from TODAY through June 1 and it is open internationally. Of course, there is nothing you “need” to do other than complete the form below, though I am giving extra entries for various things – like the picture op. (Can you tell I am excited to see pictures!). Winners are randomly chosen.

Here is what you can win:

1) $100 gift certificate for Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) PLUS a copy of the Girl Guide and swag (1 prize)

2) An annotated galley proof of the Girl Guide with my comments throughout, PLUS book swag (1 prize)

3) A copy of the Girl Guide plus book swag (3 prizes)

Complete the form below to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Come back Weds and I will post about resiliency and adolescence! See you then

Bouncing Back From Set-Backs

I get knocked down, I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down!

That Chumbawamba song is what came to mind when I began dwelling on the concept of bouncing back.

When I turned 12, my grandma paid for me to take horseback riding lessons. I was “horse crazy” at the time, reading all I could about horses, collecting model horses, –which was about as close as that suburbanite, tract home dwelling girl was going to get to owning a horse– drawing pictures of horses, etc.

As my mom drove me up to the ranch for my first lesson, I gazed lovingly at all the pretty horses. (For some reason, I feel compelled to interrupt my writing of this blog post to do an internet search on Cormac McCarthy and Matt Damon movies.) There was one horse in particular that caught my eye. He was white with black and brown patches. When I asked about him up at the stables, they told me his name was “Howdy Bars” and that I wouldn’t be riding him just yet. For my first few lessons, they gave me the calmer horses, whose names I don’t remember. Finally, by my third or fourth lesson, I was allowed to ride Howdy Bars!  He was so pretty. I could tell he was a bit more fiesty than the other horses. I mounted him and joined the other two riders who were there for the lesson.  As we gathered together, I’m not exactly sure how it happened. Perhaps one of the other horses thought it would be funny to nip Howdy Bars in the behind, perhaps one of the other horses dared Howdy Bars to just take off running for no apparent reason. We hadn’t quite gotten to galloping yet, but I was getting an impromptu lesson. I was glad I had taken Western style lessons which meant I used a saddle with a saddle horn instead of the English saddle with no horn –at least I had something to cling on to desperately as Howdy Bars raced around  the corral while the instructor tried to catch up to stop him.  As we made our second turn, I could feel myself slowly sliding off to one side. I tired to hang on to the saddle horn, I tired to hang on and readjust myself with my legs, but it wasn’t going to happen. Good thing the dirt was soft. As soon as I was off Howdy Bars, he stopped running and come back to me, or maybe the instructor brought him back. That part was a little hazy. I remember being asked by several people if I was “okay.” I replied with a gruff, “Yes” and then before anyone could stop me, I remounted Howdy Bars ready to continue the lesson.  The instructor asked if I was sure I still wanted to ride him and offered to switch to a calmer horse. I declined. I didn’t want to go back to kindergarten!

Both my mom and my instructor praised me for getting right back on the horse. My mom even seemed a little surprised that I would get right back on after that. I was surprised that she didn’t seem to know, what I thought everyone knew, that when you fall off a horse, you have to get right back on, otherwise, it’s going to be so much harder to feel confident enough to get on a horse again if you wait till later. It wasn’t until later, that I found out this could be used as a metphor for bouncing back from life’s setbacks.

In life, though, sometimes, “bouncing back” can feel more like “crawling back.” I plan on talking more about this “crawling back” in a future post.

Resiliency: On Bouncing Back from Criticism

Student: Do I have what it takes to be a professional?
Teacher: No.
Observer: Why crush the student’s spirits now?
Teacher: If the student believes me and gives up, then she doesn’t have what it takes. To be a pro in this business, you have to take a comment like that as a spur to work harder.

Being able to bounce after a failure, set-back, or critique is an important life skill. Set-backs, failures, and partial successes are the building blocks of experience. Without the ability to turn failure in to learning, people give up on dreams.

For example, I write stories. As a child, I wrote tall tales and fantasies: wild, wacky, and wonderful – but derivative and full of clichés. As a tween, I turned to more realistic work and starting exploring the effects I could achieve through more subtle use of language. These efforts were of mixed quality – often showing promise, but sometimes failing utterly. One piece that failed got a scathing critique from my English teacher and I stopped writing fiction except when explicitly required for class. I just stopped. I took the critique as a statement of failure and gave up. I was not resilient.

In my case, the need to tell stories and work with language continued. As a teen, I wrote poetry and starting directing plays. I failed to develop the courage to pursue theatre professionally, though I had enough skill to justify the attempt. But, I was not resilient enough. I took a few rejections too personally and gave up.

And then, in my mid-30s, I watched as my brother ran his first marathon and decided it was time to accomplish some of my big goals. And that meant developing grit and resiliency.

It is not an easy task, overcoming decades of training in giving up, but it is a necessary one. For the past few years, I have been consistently pushing myself, learning, and developing. And, I have submitted my work and been rejected. Each rejection hurts and each rejection gives me an opportunity to strengthen my ability to recover and keep going.

I find myself asking how I developed the habit of surrender. Somewhere along the line, I learned to value myself only when I was succeeding. At the same time, I had no practice in working through a challenge to achievement. I grew lazy and apathetic. Perfectionism and an awareness of how far my attempts at writing fell short of the ideals I set for myself combined to make me think it was impossible that I would ever be good. And I had no external guide or mentor to nurture, support, and push me.

Now, I know I need external goads, so I have put some external pressures in place, pressures so strong they scare me. I have asked people who are either better writers or more demanding readers than I am to read and critique my work. These are not only people I want to learn from, but people I want to respect me, people I want to impress. I don’t expect to impress them with my work now, but I hope I can at least demonstrate an admirable work ethic and growth curve. I expect to be kicked to the curb often as I strive to learn what they have to teach me.

In my youth, I would never have felt safe seeking out a challenge where I expect to fail at first. Now, I recognize that without the willingness to be a beginner and to risk failure and embarrassment, I will never develop the skills I desire.

I wish I had learned to be resilient earlier in my life, but I trust it is not too late for me.

___________________________________________________

Kate writes about creativity and story-telling as tools for making sense of the world at www.katearmsroberts.com.

Sometimes I sit and think

You have a lot of time to think when a dentist is drilling your tooth for your very first crown. Thinking is about all you can do. Talking is surely impossible, as every dental implement known to man is crowded into your maw in an exciting game of “Will This Fit Too?” Listening to music is nearly impossible, for the drill is screaming like a banshee inches from your ear. Your hands are tightly entwined, breathing is the slow focused pattern you used last during childbirth, and the dental assistant points out to Sir Drillmaster that “she’s not in pain, I think that is her relaxed face.”

So you sit and think.

You sit and think about how you came to find yourself here in a dentist’s chair. You think about how strong your teeth have been, and how despite your perfect oral hygiene you also have wickedly strong jaw muscles. You think back on your 30 years of flute playing, and how stretched out your neck and jaw muscles must be on the right side, after so many years of playing with your head to the left. You think about the stress you’ve always had, and how it has gradually crescendoed since you became a mother a dozen years ago.

And you think about your strong jaws and stretched neck muscles and incessant stress, and you know the TMJ has won. Playing flute hurts (but it’s tolerable) and you’ve cracked at least one tooth from the clenching. The stress won. It won.

Because your bite is so messed up it takes nearly twice as long to set the temporary crown, you have even more time to think. You think about over-excitabilities and innate wiring and inner reactions to outside stressors and how many times you’ve tried to manage your stress and how many times you’ve failed.  You wonder if you’re always going to feel this way, and what the stress could do to your body next, and you feel sad. Eventually you feel lightheaded, but that’s from reclining nearly upside-down for 90 minutes.

You realize as you stumble out the door to the car that you have more thinking to do. About self-care and stress and living an epic life instead of a to-do list. But that thinking will have to wait, for ibuprofen and muscle relaxants and soup will prevent any kind of coherent thought.

My Body feels drained or is it my Soul?

That point of total exhaustion – and yes, it is body, mind, and soul.  Having immersed myself in various projects – many times simultaneously (somewhat out of necessity), I reach a point where there are no more resources to draw on.  The ‘to do’ and ‘want to’ lists have not gone away, just running below empty.   Yes, below empty because the output is more than full tilt.  Nurturing the Soul just became a necessity.

Do you ever get to that point?

Picture -  hands wringing, pacing, face scrunched, saying “What to do, what to do?”

Best starting point is BREATHING.   I also fall back on some of my techniques and modalities for reconnecting and rejuvenating my body, mind, and soul.  I use Jin Shin Acupressure, Flower Essences, drawing Mandalas, breathing, exercise, walks (especially in nature settings), reading, and have to watch out or eating enters the formula.    Then I give myself permission to stop and play; not to have to do it all today.

The trick is to build nurturing the Soul into the daily routine.  The intensity of life’s “routine” experiences requires frequent nurturing of the Soul.

Another wearing on the Soul is that many times nurturing can be very exuberant and watch out for the reactions of others. –à Lean your head back, shake your hair from side to side with a gentle breeze caressing you, and laugh out loud.  Be comfortable in your own skin and the Soul shines through.  (And yes singing in the shower or dancing in the garage is ok too.)

PLAY– Something that will make our hearts sing, souls dance, and can be remembered again and again with joy and happiness.  Barbara Brennen in ‘The Gift of Play’.

Yes nurture your Soul through play.  Play often – it is productive, it nurtures your soul!

What do you do to Nurture your Soul?  How do you PLAY?

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Edith shares more thoughts, tools, and experiences at How To In Life

Unconditional

It’s an easy, alluring trap to fall into, and I do it more often than I’d like to.

It starts so simply; one or another of them will come up to me, waving a piece of paper or a Lego monstrosity or a frog made out of craft foam, and more often than not, it’s pretty amazing. E cornered me the other day and insisted on taking me on a tour of her Minecraft island; inside her mansion is a lava-powered hot tub, a vending machine that dispenses cooked chickens, and – in the back yard – a roller coaster. She’s wiring up half the island for zombie/creeper detection with pressure plates and redstone (whatever that is; I’ve gleaned from conversation that it’s a form of crude electrical wiring) and wants me to see every square inch of her defensive perimeter.

It’s pretty amazing. And I told her so, and off she went, beaming with pride.

Did you see it happen there? It was pretty subtle. What happened is this: I unbalanced the praise equation, tilting it away from gifted-is-wiring, and toward gifted-is-output. In so doing, I created an obligation for myself to get her in a random, decidedly nonproductive moment, and tell her she’s an awesome kid, to counterbalance this moment.  That’s the way of emotional intensity. They’ve already soared to a personal emotional ‘high’ based on what they’ve created. Seeking out my approval, or Kathy’s, just takes them that much higher. Trouble is, I don’t want them to think that they have to do something to merit praise and attention – because there will be days they don’t feel like ‘producing,’ and I need each of them to know that those days are good days, too. They’re good kids on those days.

There’s nothing wrong with praising output; in this house, there’s lots of output, and I really am impressed with all of it. Output is great. But so is non-output. They’re amazing kids when they’re wiring their Minecraft islands and when they’re asleep and when they’re brushing their teeth and when they’re writing and when they’re not writing and when they are laughing and when asynchrony makes them act nine and nineteen and twenty-nine. Teaching them that gifted is wiring, not output, requires an endless rebalancing of this equation. It’s made that much harder, I’ve noticed, when they’re in their en fuego output phases, when my desk piles up with H’s cartoon cards and the floor of A’s room is awash in Legos, part of his never-ending quest to build a convincing Pelican (from Halo) and E is working out the finer points of a Minecraft dirigible.

I have to work harder to catch them in their sleepy moments, their regular-kid moments, running around the yard and shooting Nerf guns at each other and singing about the Batmobile losing a wheel. Some weeks, I don’t ever find those moments; they run at full-blast from the time they get up until the last joule of energy dissipates and dreams overtake them, and I’m left to whisper their awesomeness into sleeping ears before pulling a blanket up and kissing them goodnight. But I know at those moments that there is work to be done. Leave the equation unbalanced too long, and that toxic message would begin to seep into them, the errant concept that I love them for what they do instead of who they are.

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Dave Mayer posts regularly with his wife, Kathy, on Chasing Hollyfeld.