Creating Resilience in our Youth
Have you seen all of the articles on girls and mental health, anxiety and stress lately?
I know that this is my area of study so maybe it is in my awareness more than most (hello creepy algorhythms) but even the local new station had an article on it last week. To me this is a sign of hope; a society speaking out about a problem is actually an amazing sign of hope!
The things that are creating all of the mental imbalance, social disconnect, stress and anxiety for these girls particularly in the puberty stage of life are many of the same things that you and I are experiencing but there is one big difference!
The difference is that they are experiencing it in a time period where their very brain and body are "cracked open" and reorganizing, as they transform in puberty.
The fact is that their brain is completely rewiring or "pruning", as neuroscientist term it. All at the same time that estrogen is really beginning to ramp up in their bodies. If you add in a heap of stress, then we get a massive amount of inflammation in the body/brain in a time when the brain is firing and rewiring and well boom you have the perfect storm for neural networks that are wired in loops of panic, anxiety and "frazzle".
Let me make the disclaimer that stress is actually good for us! It isn't the bad guy to this story. It is a response to a stimuli that creates a sense of safety, evolutionary speaking.
However, in an age where our body experiences SO MUCH stress on the daily; from blood sugar spikes and dips, to social media, to simply so much media, school pressure, so many activities, to internal and external bullying, general pressure, too much of the wrong kind of light (blue light) and on and on, well then bam again a storm.
So....what creates resilience?
Resilience is found in the the spaces in between. In the moments of pause and recenter. In the breakdowns before the breakthrough.
It is found in the warm embrace of a loved one, in the gentle words whispered "I see you".
As parents in order to create this resilience for our kids we need to slow down and see how this looks in our own life. How resilient are we right now? If the answer is, "not very". NO JUDGEMENT but a good wake up call to work on that, because how many of us were even raised with the word "resilient?" How can you foster something you don't have in yourself.
What I have seen in my own life and in all of the research out there around brain, body and whole health for these kiddos ALONG with a healthy dose of looking at cultures that do a more balanced job of this, and looking to the ancestors who came before and finding these commonalities is this.
1. Show up. She needs regular connection to help navigate "all the things". We can't choose or control what they go through but we can show up to whatever it is they are going through. Starting a non-negotiable, REGULAR date night, once a week around 9/10 when they still want to hang out is SO helpful when the later years come.
2. Connect her to nature. Nature is one of the biggest ways for the body to “exhale”, to release the inflammation and to come into a state of greater coherence and resilience. On a biochemical level putting our bare feet on the ground literally “recharges” us as electrons flow from the ground through our feet and rebalance or ground our biochemistry.
3. Allow them to be more. To be bored, to be slow, to be big, to simply be. We all fill our time with so much...what if we brought in being more?
4. "Hold Space" versus evaluate and/or fix. When we hold space for our kids we go into well...space. We quiet our minds, open our hearts and allow all the yuck to surface. We don't try and fix, make it better or evaluate the situation. There is a time and place for this but it is way less than we realize.
5. Help her feel safe and connected in her body. Sometimes to do this she may need tools, information and space to actually practice the things.
6. Don't take it personal. Oh so hard, but so much truth and wisdom to this one. You can still have boundaries without taking it personal.
7. Slow the breaks on growing up. Say no more often to things that seem "culturally normal" yet are SO not normal and we know are harming our kids. Social media before 13 is a HUGE no (the surgeon general just came out and realeased a statement on this) and I would argue that the age should be even higher than that! The research is 100% in agreement this is SO damaging to their developing brains and mental health. WE AS PARENTS get to set the rules and change the stream of the culture. As hard as it may sometimes be remember that we all went through life without cell phones in these years and we were all just fine!
8. Help her find something "bigger". Give her a grounding in something bigger than her that helps her see the beauty and importance of life.
10. Help them complete their stress cycle and maybe even recognize and downgrade all the stress coming at them.