Making Kids Stronger by Making Them Flexible - Brief Article

School Administrator, Feb, 2001 by Paul D. Houston

It has always interested me why some people bend while others break. I suppose I am interested because, like many others, my own story is one of resilience. My academic career marked my movement from being a non-reader to slow learner to underachiever to honor student. I always have credited my progress to the support of parents and teachers and to an incredibly strong streak of stubbornness that has served me well.

The exercise of will throughout my life has allowed me to forge through the unknown, to stand strong in the winds of change and to exhibit a sense of self-worth even when external circumstances would question my self-confidence.

Yet human will, by itself, can merely be aggravating to others or even self-destructive. It has to be balanced by flexibility. I call this paradox "confident humility."

A Post-Columbine Worry

Confident humility is the ability to believe in yourself while leaving room for the possibility that someone else has a better idea. I think the sense of balance implied by this paradox is a key to unlocking our understanding of resiliency. The healthiest place is between the extremes. If you lean too far in one direction it's easy to be pushed over. A sense of balance allows you to recover and to adjust.

How can schools build the strong, healthy ego implied by that sense of balance? In the wake of Columbine, that question becomes even more pertinent and powerful. How can we help our children grow up, unscarred and unscathed, in a changing and disconnected world where images of violence permeate? How can we give children a sense of purpose, a sense of confidence and a sense of balance when everything around them seems to question purpose, destroy confidence and knock them down before they even get started?

The power of teaching resilience is the power of giving children the strength to handle change and to recover easily from misfortune. Sadly, for many of our children, misfortune is a way of life. How can we, as adults, prepare students for what they need to be resilient people?

Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a book a few years ago and took the title from the African proverb that stares, "It takes a village to raise a child." This recognizes the creation of resilient children is not something done only in a home or in isolation. It requires a team. Unfortunately, in today's world we must ask: If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to raise a village?

Far too many of our children are growing up in a world where there is no village--no safety net of support to catch them when they fall. They are growing up isolated and emotionally neglected. Their emotional care and feeding is being left up to the schools. And far too often, the schools are not up to it. They cannot be parent, friend, mentor, guide, doctor, nurse, social worker and minister. The task is too overwhelming. It does take the village.

Risk-Taking Factors

That is why a national movement is needed to bind school, family and community together. The movement toward "schools of promise," which grew out of the America's Promise initiative led by Gen. Colin Powell, is one way of connecting schools to communities. The initiative is rooted in the reality that schools exist at the physical and psychological centers of what can become the village. By helping schools reach out to the community and the community to reach in to the schools, we can begin building villages around our children.

This effort must be done with a sense of respect and mutuality. There is another proverb less well known but just as appropriate. It reminds us that "when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled." When adults fight, children suffer. Resilience in children starts with adults acting responsibly and respectfully toward each other. Resiliency doesn't just happen. It is created by caring adults. If we expect children to show respect, they must be shown respect and witness it in the adults they observe.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota recently established that a strong connection to school reduces the risk-taking behaviors that lead to failure. School connection also enhances those behaviors that lead to success, This provides clues to what we must do to create resilient young people. We must find ways to get them connected to school. Caring adults must create a web of support around children for them to grow with a sense of efficacy, which becomes the foundation for resilient behavior. Schools are there to elevate a child's chances for success.

Uncertain Times

Rubber bands are resilient. But their resilience is more than just snapping back into place once they are pulled. They store and release kinetic energy. As any teacher knows, rubber bands are good at propelling small objects. If we are to give our children the gift of success, we must find ways of helping them prosper in an uncertain and, too often, unfriendly environment.

We want children to snap back, to recover and to adjust. We also want them to move forward, to propel themselves with the confident humility that will lead to their success. Through their success, we want them to blaze a trail for all of us.