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6 Ideas for Talking about Emotional Resilience with Children
Make practicing emotional resilience a normal activity in your home.
Emotional resilience is “the ability to adapt to emotional challenges with courage and faith centered in Jesus Christ.”
Emotional resilience springs from our divinely given inner strengths, which grow with experience and in relationship with the Lord. When speaking about emotional resilience, the First Presidency invited us to “diligently study and apply these principles and teach them to your family members” and promised that “accepting and living [the principles of emotional resilience] will better enable you to receive the strength promised by the Lord.”
How to Start Conversations
As we strive to act on that invitation to teach emotional resilience to our family members, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are a few ways you can make it easier for these conversations to happen naturally:
1. Lead by example.
We are taught to “cry unto God for all [our] support” (Alma 37:36). We can model for our children how to bring our worries or concerns to our Heavenly Father and how to find resilience and strength through His love and guidance. We can pray for strength and the peace that comes through the enabling power of Jesus Christ because of His Atonement. As children hear us communicate with Heavenly Father in a positive and resilient way, they can feel confident and safe turning to Him as well.
Just as we turn to Heavenly Father to share our thoughts and feelings and to seek His help and guidance, we can also strive to be extensions of His love and be safe harbors that our children can turn to and trust to hold their emotions. Show them that they can sort through these emotions in a loving relationship with you, and as appropriate, pray with your children for guidance and strength from Heavenly Father with emotional needs.
2. Tune in and listen as your children speak.
“The time to listen is when someone needs to be heard,” said President Russell M. Nelson. He continued:
“Children are naturally eager to share their experiences, which range from triumphs of delight to trials of distress. Are we as eager to listen? If they try to express their anguish, is it possible for us to listen openly to a shocking experience without going into a state of shock ourselves? Can we listen without interrupting and without making snap judgments that slam shut the door of dialogue? It can remain open with the soothing reassurance that we believe in them and understand their feelings. Adults should not pretend an experience did not happen just because they might wish otherwise. …
“Parents with teenage youth may find that time for listening is often less convenient but more important when young people feel lonely or troubled. And when they seem to deserve favor least, they may need it most.”
Sister Joy D. Jones, former Primary General President, also counseled us to prevent electronics from getting between us and our children: “Let’s not allow the convenience of electronic devices to keep us from teaching and listening to our children and looking into their eyes.”
3. Express confidence in your children.
“Our children are capable of thriving in the face of today’s challenges,” taught Elder Lynn G. Robbins when he was a member of the Seventy.
We can show our children we believe in them by saying, “This is hard. You’re doing well. With practice, you’ll do even better.”
4. Hold family councils and listen to your children’s perspectives.
When teaching about family councils, President M. Russell Ballard (1928–2023) said: “Children desperately need parents willing to listen to them.” He also taught: “When parents are prepared and children listen and participate in the discussion, the family council is truly working!”
Try asking children for advice on how to handle difficult situations. They might be thrilled to know their opinions are valued.
5. Testify of the love and strength you receive from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, taught that “our children should also hear us bear our testimonies frequently,” which will “strengthen our children by encouraging them to define themselves by their growing testimonies.”
6. Encourage children to be calm and comfortable in processing their emotions.
We can show our children that experiencing emotion is normal. On occasion you might say, “I’m feeling X because Y.” When your children become emotional or struggle with strong, distressing feelings, you may feel your own emotions increase, and you may even feel a bit overwhelmed with your own emotions. Instead of reacting to the emotions you feel, remain calm and demonstrate that feelings are normal and can be expressed in healthier ways.
From time to time, acknowledge your own weakness. As a parent you might say, “I was 10 once. I got in trouble at school because of anger, just like you did. Here’s what I did to manage my anger.” We can help our children know we understand their experiences. By responding with love and calmness, they can feel they are not alone.
It may be important to help our children recognize the importance of calming strong emotions and understanding how certain emotions impact our spiritual health. Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles described it this way: “The Spirit plays a pivotal role in communicating God’s love to us [see Galatian 5:22]. Yet the influence of the Holy Ghost can be obscured ‘by strong emotions, such as anger, hate, … [or] fear, … like trying to savor the delicate flavor of a grape while eating a jalapeño pepper. … [One flavor] completely overpowers the other.”
As we work with our own and our children’s emotions, it can be helpful to remember that emotions are often estimates of how beneficial or threatening something is. We can calmly assess how accurate emotions are and practice responding to the emotions from a more accurate level of intensity.
In an example of this, an adult pulled aside an angry child and said, “You’re OK. I’m not angry. I’m concerned that your aggression will hurt someone or push people away. What are you feeling? Your feelings are valid. How can we handle that?” When a child is upset, you might ask, “Are you OK? What’s going on?”
Elder Robert D. Hales (1932–2017) counseled us to “listen with love and refrain from interrupting.” Help children feel safe talking about their emotions, and don’t forget to take delight in their positive experiences and emotions too. For example, when a child has received a good grade in school, a parent can say, “That is wonderful! I am glad you feel positive when you do well in school. Why do you think it feels good to do well in school? What helped you do so well?”
When to Start Conversations
While it’s critical to teach emotion-regulation skills when your children are struggling, it’s not the only time that these discussions should occur. You can teach emotional-resilience skills to your children during normal life moments—the words and skills discussed will strengthen them for moments in life that are more difficult.
Some suggested times for having emotional-resilience conversations include:
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Weekly home evening.
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Monthly individual interviews with each child.
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Family dinners. Share stories of relatives who overcame adversity. Discuss what strengths helped them get through trials. Or have each member of the family relate a triumph and a challenge that day and what he or she did. To stimulate teamwork and creative problem solving, brainstorm as a family for other helpful ways to cope with difficult situations.
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Family scripture study or Come, Follow Me discussions. Look for ways the scriptures and stories teach emotional-resilience concepts.
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Reading time. Books can be a great way to discuss emotions. For younger children, you can choose to read books involving emotions and talk about the ways the characters show resilience. For older children, you may choose to have a family book club where everyone reads the same book and then you have a weekly meeting to discuss the resilience concepts you are learning from the book.
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Family meetings. Hold meetings for several weeks and go through the Finding Strength in the Lord: Emotional Resilience course together. Adapt the materials to be age appropriate for children. Consider taking the course yourself first.
Start Small
Make practicing emotional resilience a normal activity in your home. Start with small discussions and find ways to encourage your children to learn what skills help them feel calmer and in control of their behaviors. This is a practice we should do consistently throughout life.
As Sister Jones said about teaching spiritual resilience to children, which can also apply to emotional resilience: “It doesn’t have to be complicated or time intensive. … Caring conversations, happening naturally and consistently, can lead to better understanding and answers.”
The Lord will bless our efforts as we strive to build emotional resilience in our families.