The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has un­doubt­ed­ly af­fect­ed us all, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents em­pha­siz­ing chal­lenges sur­round­ing the fragili­ty of our men­tal health. A re­cent re­port out of Cana­da, re­vealed three out of four par­ents ex­pe­ri­enced con­cerns and wor­ries about bal­anc­ing child­care, their child’s school­ing and their own pro­fes­sion­al work ir­re­spec­tive of the child’s age. More than half of par­ents sur­veyed re­port­ed in­creas­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in man­ag­ing their child’s emo­tions as well as their own.

An­oth­er re­search, by the Aus­tralian Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion in­ves­ti­gat­ed COVID-19-re­lat­ed con­cerns ex­pe­ri­enced by chil­dren aged five and old­er and their par­ents from Jan­u­ary to April 2021. The re­port sug­gest­ed that “men­tal health con­cerns re­sult­ing from COVID-19” and “im­pacts on fam­i­ly life” were among the top five con­cerns be­cause the sever­i­ty of pre­sen­ta­tions was es­ca­lat­ing.

A key sum­ma­ry from this re­search group con­clud­ed that when par­ents are aware of their own emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion, and when they can find space to struc­ture mean­ing­ful fam­i­ly ac­tiv­i­ties that pro­mote mu­tu­al bond­ing, both they and their chil­dren are in a bet­ter po­si­tion to learn core cop­ing skills that will ben­e­fit in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships.

What can par­ents do? Build Re­silience

The aris­ing par­ent­ing chal­lenges sur­round­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic may rep­re­sent an op­por­tune time for us to im­prove our re­silience and mod­el more adap­tive strate­gies and skills. In turn, such skills can pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of re­silient be­hav­iours in our chil­dren.

Re­silience is the ca­pac­i­ty for an in­di­vid­ual to re­main en­gaged, avail­able and op­ti­mistic in­stead of with­drawn, over­whelmed and de­feat­ed when faced with hard­ship and ad­ver­si­ty.

It is im­por­tant to recog­nise, not every­one re­acts in the same way to a giv­en sit­u­a­tion. The abil­i­ty to man­age strong neg­a­tive emo­tions and shift our mind­set to a more adap­tive per­spec­tive can be de­vel­oped at any age. Since our brain is most adept at per­form­ing a new task ear­ly in life, it’s most ben­e­fi­cial for peo­ple to be­come so­cialised in these fun­da­men­tal life skills ear­ly. This will help chil­dren to be­come self-reg­u­lat­ed, adap­tive and thriv­ing adults.

Ad­ver­si­ty/Mis­takes: An op­por­tu­ni­ty for growth

Par­ent­ing is dif­fi­cult and striv­ing for per­fec­tion is un­re­al­is­tic and un­at­tain­able. We can in­stead choose to mod­el that mis­takes and fail­ures can be a re­newed op­por­tu­ni­ty for growth. Rais­ing re­silient chil­dren means that we val­ue teach­ing them self-com­pas­sion, grat­i­tude, de­layed grat­i­fi­ca­tion and self-worth to lever­age life ex­pe­ri­ences that fa­cil­i­tate the de­vel­op­ment of their sense of pur­pose.

It is as crit­i­cal for par­ents to val­ue teach­ing chil­dren these core so­cial emo­tion­al skills, just as much as we might en­cour­age them to be­come ex­pert swim­mers or gift­ed math­e­mati­cians.

When sup­port­ive par­ent­ing and strong fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships con­sis­tent­ly pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties to strength­en cop­ing skills and the abil­i­ty to reg­u­late emo­tions, these are al­so op­por­tu­ni­ties for chil­dren to be­come skilled at ac­cept­ing hard­ship and re­main­ing com­mit­ted to­ward achieve­ment. Sup­port­ive parental prac­tices con­tribute to chil­dren’s long-term healthy emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

Sup­port­ive prac­tices that work

Sup­port­ive prac­tices are things like com­fort­ing chil­dren when they ex­pe­ri­ence neg­a­tive emo­tions; en­gag­ing in prob­lem-solv­ing strate­gies aimed at re­duc­ing chil­dren’s dis­tress; and dis­cussing chil­dren’s emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ences with them. As such, these re­sults sug­gest that sup­port­ive par­ent­ing is as­so­ci­at­ed with chil­dren who are bet­ter at man­ag­ing dif­fi­cult emo­tions.

It was al­so found that in­val­i­dat­ing chil­dren’s emo­tion­al ex­pres­sion or ig­nor­ing or dis­miss­ing the child’s emo­tions con­tributed to poor­er emo­tion reg­u­la­tion skills in chil­dren, and that such less-sup­port­ive par­ent­ing prac­tices were linked to anx­i­ety in adult­hood. When par­ents them­selves match or ex­ceed their child’s emo­tions, they al­so of­fer less adap­tive emo­tion­al coach­ing.

Par­ents may have heard the air­plane safe­ty tip to al­ways don one’s own oxy­gen mask be­fore help­ing a child: the same ap­plies with emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion. As par­ents, when we pri­ori­tise man­ag­ing our own stress, tol­er­at­ing greater un­cer­tain­ty and en­gag­ing in self-care ac­tiv­i­ties like ex­er­cise, good sleep hy­giene and re­lax­ation, this ex­pands our ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond calm­ly. This teach­es our chil­dren that they too can cope and man­age stress and re­lat­ed threats.

Sup­port­ive par­ent­ing is best achieved when a con­nect­ed, car­ing and re­spon­sive re­la­tion­ship with chil­dren is fos­tered ear­ly on. Sup­port­ive par­ent­ing that builds re­silience is com­pa­ra­ble to an ear­ly in­vest­ment that grows with time. It is key to cre­ate as many ear­ly pos­i­tive and re­in­forc­ing ex­pe­ri­ences as pos­si­ble.

Build­ing skills to en­dure the cri­sis

Ad­ver­si­ty cre­ates ac­ci­den­tal op­por­tu­ni­ties to build skills to en­dure on­go­ing or fu­ture hard­ship. This is the essence of re­silience: ac­cept­ing that a door has closed be­hind us, and be­ing op­ti­mistic about what awaits. Cre­ativ­i­ty and en­sur­ing there are out­lets to con­vert the frus­tra­tions in­to some­thing pos­i­tive, aids the process. By be­ing more emo­tion­al­ly and men­tal­ly ground­ed as par­ents, you can lead col­lec­tive­ly stronger fam­i­lies.

Let’s cre­ate re­silience to­geth­er!