Cultivating Resilience in Your Children
By now you may have heard that our That Makes Sense OT word of the year is
The definition of the verb cultivate includes: to prepare, to refine, to improve, to foster the growth of, to encourage.
Resilience is defined as the ability to recover or adjust easily.
How do the words cultivate and resilience fit with our mission?
With every tip and piece of advice we share, our main message is to help your family connect, develop strong relationships, and build a safe space. This allows your child’s natural curiosity to emerge and transform their rigidity into adventurous exploration of new activities.
We like to think about cultivating the environment to be supportive and sprinkling the seeds for curiosity. Kids are naturally curious when they feel safe and supported. Children have an inner drive to explore and to learn new skills. They want to be independent and when they are given activities that have the balance of a little bit of challenge along with the ability to succeed, they build resilience.
What doesn’t work to cultivate resilience?
Pressure never works!
Kids don’t handle pressure well and they can smell a bribe a mile away. While most kids have a huge desire to please, their sense of feeling safe comes first over everything. If a task feels too hard (unsafe) for them, pressure is going to result in a power struggle. Kids don’t have control over very many things in their lives, but they do have control over what they eat. Sure, it’s possible to pressure a child into eating something, but it builds mistrust and actually results in kids eating less and having more problematic behaviors around mealtime. Pressure with eating will never develop the lifelong skills necessary for sustained healthy eating skills.
At That Makes Sense OT, we believe in cultivating resilience for our families and their children. We are here to support you and guide you with every step of your journey. Whether you need support for feeding or for sensory issues, we are your go-to resource. Our feeding and sensory packages provide the just-right support to help you get unstuck and start you along the path toward cultivating resilience in your family.
Feeling stuck and desperate and not sure where to turn?
