pull down to refresh
493 sats \ 11 replies \ @ablunderfilledlife 28 Feb \ on: What are your hopes for your children? meta
Resilience is an admirable and sensible quality to hope for in your boy. He will need it, and those who will depend on him in the future will need it from him.
In addition to instilling resilience, I want my kids to have control over their attention. By this, I don't just mean to cite concentration. In myself and others, I see us surrendering ourselves (our time and cognition) over to something that will suck it indiscriminately and without providing much value.
Doomscrolling is a nice example of this. When initially opening up a YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok-esque platform, the choice system is subtle. With every swipe and every click, we are choosing "yes" or saying "here is more of me."
Attention is a paramount power. Look at your kids first learning to ride a bike, skateboard, or scooter: they go to where their eyes are. If they are looking to the right, they veer right. If they are going to the left, they veer left. "Look ahead" is the best advice my dad ever gave me. He told me this when learning to drive and to race. It meant looking where I was going and looking to where the turn went. It kept me prepared but present.
Resilience is immutable trait.
You have it or you don’t but with shades of gray.
I lack resilience. But occasionally I can be resilient for a day maybe a week or month. But I am not a naturally resilient person.
reply
Thanks for your inputs. Have you heard of Angela Duckworth’s TED talk on grit before? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8&pp=ygUqZ3JpdCB0aGUgcG93ZXIgb2YgcGFzc2lvbiBhbmQgcGVyc2V2ZXJhbmNl. She puts forth the argument that if we have a growth mindset and develop a higher resistance towards not being fearful of making mistakes, we will improve our resilience.
So Singapore schools are quite conscientious about getting students to think positively and accept challenges as stepping stones. Ofc I agree that increasing resilience is easier said than done since some people won’t be receptive to such facilitation efforts
reply
I've never heard of it as an immutable trait. Is that your thinking or does it have some psychological grounding? Not challenging, just situating.
I've always put resilience of skill (or set of skills) and character trait. It's something that you can teach people to hone and improve through technique, but then there are some that make it look natural, where maybe they learned those and other techniques very early.
reply
My thinking and my experience
As far as teaching resilience, how effective? I doubt you can teach someone to be resilient. Can you teach someone to be mentally tough? Unlikely
reply
I think someone can teach another to be mentally tougher!
The military, especially elite forces, apply training techniques that make their guys mentally tougher. I admit that to get to that level, there is a degree of criteria of mental toughness needed as a prerequisite, but I would argue that they weren't that mentally tough at age 10 or 15. They had to develop it.
Some of the techniques that they use:
- Extreme Physical Training
- Stress Inoculation
- Visualization and Mental Rehearsal Exercises (I remember reading a great article about how firefighters deal with fear and panic, and how visualization exercises help them overcome it)
- Breathing Techniques (box breathing comes to mind)
- Adversity Training
- Goal Setting
- Team Bonding
- After-Action Reviews (basically debriefs that allow them to metacognitively improve)
A more grounded or close-to-home example might be running with a friend. Helping that friend, who is exhausted, to make a goal a bit further (just get to the mailbox) and then to extend that goal (now to the end of the block) and so on--that is helping them learn to chunk a difficult task into tasks that seem more manageable. Getting them to recognize that voice inside their head that says that they can't, and then helping them do it anyway--that shows them the difference between self-talk and actual ability.
I would be interested to know @brandonsbytes's thoughts on this. I think he's done some pretty intense training that required him to take his mind/body to the next level.
reply
I just got inspired by you to send the following message to my dancers to prep their minds for a school performance next Fri. Thanks mate
Morning!
The training is tough, but the end is near.
Positive visualisation
Imagine yourself slaying the dance moves with a gigantic smile on your face. This will increase the fun factor!
reply
What is the military treatment for ptsd ?
reply
reply
I learnt this from you today too!
reply
I had no idea their peripheral vision was still developing too. I thought it was just an attention thing. Fascinating!
reply
You know what? I stole your “Look ahead” phrase when I marshalled my dance club students from outside the hall to the back of the stage for their performance just now. Haha
You reminded me that I should acknowledged your attention comment made a couple of days back. So I did. Now I’m curious. Since when the maintaining of one’s attention has been so salient in your mind?
reply