Transcription:
The 7 C's of Resiliency

Dr Greg Fritz: For many children, the pandemic is the first time they've had to deal with a serious disruption on a large scale, and some are fairing better than others. Parents and caregivers feel powerless and they worry about long-term emotional fallout. However, we also hear about resiliency and how kids are great at bouncing back. But is this really true? Are the kids all right? And if they aren't, how can we help them?

We're here to learn more with Kim LaFountain, a licensed mental health counselor at Bradley Learning Exchange here at Bradley Hospital. This is Mind Cast, Healthy Mind, Healthy Child, a podcast from the mental health experts at Bradley Hospital, leaders in mental healthcare for children.

I'm Dr. Gregory Fritz with my colleague, Dr. Anne Walters.

Dr Anne Walters: Kim, thanks so much for being here. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Kim LaFountain: Thank you for having me. Like Dr. Fritz mentioned, I'm a licensed mental health counselor, been in the field a long time. I spent the majority of my career providing outpatient therapy to children, adolescents, and young adults who had experienced trauma. I currently work at Bradley Hospital in the Department of Behavioral Education, where I work as a behavioral education development specialist. And I'm also the coordinator of the Joint Bradley Hospital and Gateway Healthcare Mental Health First Aid Program.

Dr Anne Walters: Well, we know you're here today to talk to us a bit about resilience and the topic of resilience in children is certainly popular right now. We hear it especially when it comes to how children are dealing with disappointment related to the pandemic. Parents are struggling with what to do or how to help their kids get through this when they themselves may also have similar challenges, which leads me to my first question, how would you define resilience?

Kim LaFountain: Resilience is the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult events. Being resilient doesn't mean that the person doesn't experience stress or suffering, but demonstrating resilience includes working through that emotional pain and suffering.

Dr Greg Fritz: So do you see resilience as a quality that someone can learn or develop? Or is it just innate and there from the beginning? And if it can be developed, how so? What small steps do you think a child can take toward becoming more resilient?

Kim LaFountain: Resilience is an innate human capacity that can be learned and developed in anyone. So I'd like you to think about a person from your childhood who made you strong. Think about what it is about that individual that helped you to become strong. What were the characteristics of that individual? It is those characteristics and qualities that contribute to building resilience. The strongest factor that contributes to resilience in young people is a strong relationship with a parent or a caring adult who provides a nurturing environment early and consistently.

Dr Anne Walters: Why do you think it's important for kids to be resilient? How does it help us?

Kim LaFountain: Resilience gives people the strength needed to process and overcome hardship. And for those lacking resilience, can become easily overwhelmed and may turn to unhealthy coping strategies. Resilient people tap into their inner strengths and their support systems to overcome challenges and work through problems.

Dr Greg Fritz: Well, what are some ways we can help a child build up their resilience when it comes to dealing with little or big challenges in their lives?

Kim LaFountain: Resilience is built through a combination of supportive relationships, skill building, and positive experiences. That's where the seven C's of resilience come into play.

Dr Anne Walters: Can you tell us a little bit more about those seven 7 C's?

Kim LaFountain: I'd be happy to. There are seven qualities that can help build resilience. And by helping a child focus on these seven qualities, you can help a child to become more flexible and more easily recover from life's challenges.

The first C is competence. That's the ability to effectively handle various situations that is acquired through experience. Children cannot become competent without developing these skills that allow them to trust their own judgments, make responsible choices and to face difficult situations. We can help a young person build competence by helping the child to focus on their strengths and to build on them, to let a child make safe choices and have an opportunity to make correction. And avoid the urge of being over-protective, which can send the message to a child that they're not capable of handling certain situations.

The second C is confidence. That's a solid belief in one's own abilities and the ability to face and cope with life's challenges. So we can build confidence in young people by pointing out and helping a child recognize when something was done correctly or done well, but we don't want to push a child to take on more than he or she can handle.

The third one is connection. That's close ties to family, friends, school and the community that gives children a sense of security and produces strong values. A sense of connection really prevents kids from seeking those destructive alternatives to attention. To build a sense of connection, you can let a child have and express a variety of emotions. Address conflict within the family and work together to resolve problems and encourage your child to take pride in the spiritual or cultural groups that are important to your family.

The fourth one is character. That's a fundamental sense of what's right and wrong that allows children to stick to their own values and demonstrate caring attitudes toward others. So to build a positive character, you can help a child understand how his or her behaviors affect other people. You can encourage the child to consider what's right versus wrong and look beyond that immediate satisfaction. And be sure to recognize the importance of caring for others and serve as a role model yourself.

The fifth one is contribution. That's understanding that a child makes the world a better place. So give children a sense of purpose that motivates them to take action and to make choices that will help them improve the world. And we can help a child understand the importance of contributing to society by stressing the value of serving others and the concept of the greater good. And again, model that generosity with your time or other resources.

The sixth one is coping and that's a capacity to use a wide variety of positive coping strategies that can protect against unsafe behaviors. To improve the child's ability to cope, model positive coping strategies yourself. Create a family environment in which talking, listening, sharing are safe and comfortable and productive.

And the last one is control. Children who realize that they can control the outcomes of their decision have more trust in their ability to handle these adverse situations when they arise. to help your child understand the importance of control, help the child to understand that some but not all events happen due to actions and choices. And allow children to make decisions on their own. Things such as "What would you like for a snack, an apple or an orange?" It doesn't matter which one they pick, but it's their choice and it helps them gain a sense of control.

So those are the seven C's of building resilience.

Dr Anne Walters: I was going to ask a little bit about the idea of competence, because there are a couple of concepts that are popular right now around concern about helicopter parenting. Let's just take that as an example. When parents are engineering outcomes in their child's life, whether it's, you know, to try to make sure that everybody is a winner in a sports activity or everyone gets a prize. I knew there was a lot of controversy over whether that is a good thing or whether it doesn't then allow kids to develop that feeling of competence in a more real way. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Kim LaFountain: We all learn from our successes and from our mistakes. And if we're not able to make mistakes, how do we learn better ways or different ways of dealing with particular situations? So if we make mistakes and somebody is correcting those mistakes for us, then we never had the opportunity to learn that on our own, which in turn prevents us from building that piece of resilience.

Dr Greg Fritz: I was interested when you were talking about coping strategies, to emphasize positive coping strategies. Could you give us a few examples of them and maybe contrast them to what might be a negative coping strategy?

Kim LaFountain: Absolutely. So positive coping strategies, things that we use with our patients here at Bradley, when we're faced with challenging situations, sometimes just gaining control of our bodies, gaining control of our breath, taking deep breaths can be very helpful, is a good first step in a coping strategy before we react to particular situations or before we react to people. We teach a lot of coping strategies around grounding as well. And grounding techniques kind of involve our senses. And the beautiful thing about the breathing techniques and the grounding techniques is you can do them anywhere. No one needs to know that you're doing them.

So a grounding technique that I use with a lot of my patients, I call it Five, Four, Three, Two, One. You know, I'll say, "Look around the room. What's five things you can see? What are four things you can touch? What are three things you can hear? What are two things you can smell? What is one thing you can taste?" And I also like to end with, "What's one positive thing you can say to yourself?" So those are strategies, again, to kind of get people to bring them back to the moment that help them to think before they react in particular situations.

Then we have our ongoing coping skills, right? Things that are healthy for us in our everyday life. Things such as making sure we get enough sleep, making sure we have time for recreation, for play for exercise. Making sure we eat a healthy diet. Some of these things are oftentimes we put on the back burner, but they're really important to put these things on their front burner to help with someone's overall coping.

Dr Greg Fritz: And they definitely can be taught. Not just all in born that we come prepared with.

Kim LaFountain: That is correct. And you also asked about some negative coping strategies. Sometimes when people feel overwhelmed with stress, with pressure, then they might resort to some negative coping strategies, some that can be quite dangerous actually, like maybe engaging in substance use or engaging in self-harm or even having thoughts of suicide in some cases.

Dr Anne Walters: I really love what you said at the last one of the Five, Four, Three, Two, One because we use that grounding technique a lot in one of our programs. But when we get to one, we're often doing taste or feel as one of them. But I love the positive thing you can say to yourself. And I'm going to take that back to the program and add it to our visual support list that we use with kids because a lot of times they'll say in the moment, in the heat of the moment when their feelings are really strong, "I don't remember. I don't remember," because it's too hard at that point. And so practicing those strategies ahead of time, and then maybe using that last one to say, "I did a great job practicing this today," or "I'm really determined that I'm going to use this the next time I feel super angry." I just love that, so thanks.

Kim LaFountain: Absolutely. And practice does make perfect because all too often we encourage children to use their coping mechanisms right in the moment. Well, how can they do that? I think about a sports analogy. I'm a huge baseball fan. You would never tell someone who's never played baseball before, "Pick up that bat, go up to the plate and hit the ball," right? You would have to teach them how to hold the bat, how to stand, how to swing, all that stuff. You know, it takes practice before they can do it in the live. And it's the same with some of these coping techniques. So I love that you have the young people practice before it's needed.

Dr Anne Walters: Well, how do you think an adult can role model resilience for their own kids?

Kim LaFountain: Adults can role model in a lot of different ways, starting with the coping strategies. Modeling your own self care, your own taking time for yourself, your own breathing techniques, your own grounding techniques. Modeling helping others, supporting others, again with your time. Giving positive feedback. Accepting choices. Taking responsibility for actions, both positive actions as well as negative actions. A lot of different ways that parents can role model resilience for young people.

And a big part of it for adults to remember too is we don't always get it right. We're not always perfect. And acknowledging that is an important piece too. If we make mistakes as adults, it's okay to say, "Gee. I'm sorry I said that. I shouldn't have said it that way," or "What I learned from this is I might do things a little bit differently." So that's important modeling for children as well.

Dr Anne Walters: I think that really ties into one of the C's that you mentioned for character, right?

Kim LaFountain: Right.

Dr Anne Walters: Then an adult who can model that process of being able to accept a mistake or talk about the ways in which they might choose to do things differently also helps the child to kind of add that piece to their own character.

Kim LaFountain: Absolutely.

Dr Greg Fritz: You think it's important for the adult when they're modeling some of these abilities to mention to the child what they're doing or do you think the child would just observe it and doesn't need to be explicit?

Kim LaFountain: I think children are very observant. And, you know, when I think about when I asked folks listening to this podcast to think about someone that helped them become strong in their life, I'm willing to bet that person never said to them, "I'm doing this to help you with that." Children are very, very observant and they absorb things like a sponge, right? And the more modeling we can do, the more opportunity they have to do that.

Dr Greg Fritz: That's great, Kim. Thanks very much. We're all acutely aware of the importance of keeping a positive mindset when overcoming any challenges, especially when times get tough. And these strategies and tips that you've been going over are so valuable.

Thanks so much for your expertise and for your time today. And if you folks found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library at bradleyhospital.org/podcast for other topics of interest to you. This Is Mind Cast: Healthy Mind, Healthy Child, a podcast from the experts at Bradley Hospital. I'm Dr. Gregory Fritz with Dr. Anne Walters. Thanks for listening.