Sometimes the most common definition of
resilience that people tend to bandy around
is something along the lines of,
you know, our capacity to overcome adversity.
And I just - don't write that down - because it sucks as a definition by the way.
I think what we've done is we've
tended to individualize resilience.
And you get a lot of, sort of, motivational
speakers talking about resilience in
that highly individualized I-made-it-through-adversity kind of way.
And it makes great television and you know you get on Oprah, or used to get on Oprah.
But it's actually not scientifically
true. what we're actually understanding
What we're actually understanding about resilience
is a far more complex story.
We obviously see themes appear
globally in what makes a particular
child resilient. They repeat.
But it's an emerging story.
So I'm gonna suggest that
there are nine things
that are more likely to predict resilience
And you know if you want to read about this
there is a book there's a I've written
about this more it's from a clinical
point of view in a book called "Working
with Children & Youth: the complex needs"
that's more the clinical side. More for
parents and, sort of, educators and people
sort of more, you know, if you
want a simpler read on this, it's called
"I Still Love You: nine things that
troubled kids need from their parents."
But essentially what
we're seeing is these patterns.
Kids seem to need structure and consequences in
their lives. They also, by the way,
children seem to need, globally no
surprise, parent-child connections.
But here's the interesting thing.
Not just that.
I very often have unfortunately maybe shared the
stage and people will say,
"Oh it's all about parent-child connections."
And the truth
of the matter is when people are under stress,
that's not the case. All over the
globe it's actually the minority opinion
that it's the primary caregiver who
looks after the child during a stressful
period of life. Most cultures in this
globe would think that that's a
ridiculous assumption - that the most
stressed person in the child's family
life, the parent, is the one that then has
to nurture the child.
The child will be passed around to all the aunties and
potentially the uncles.
There'd be an emphasis on fathers and other
resource people. And that's why really
what we're understanding is, the
parent-child connection is one of the
mechanisms that makes us resilient but
it's not the only one.
Number four - lots and lots of other strong relationships are super important
to children's psychosocial development.
I worked with a, there was a boy he was about 10 years old, very awkward.
He'd been raised in dire poverty.
His teeth were awful. He had
hand-me-down clothing.
It was like you know he had a big target on him
in the school that said pick on me, sort of thing,
or that type of thing. And though
the school had done what they could to
try and keep him safe, this kid hated
going to school.
So what he had done was he had adapted
and found his own pattern
of resilience by hiding with the janitor
at lunch breaks and at the recess breaks.
Rather than going out on the playground where he
didn't feel safe, he would hang out with the janitor.
And the janitor was this
gruff old guy - like just salt of the earth,
down to earth kind of guy right - 
that would sweep the floors and mopped
the floors. He was really good with
the kids. He was just kind of honest.
On the weekends he'd go out hunting
moose or whatever - this is in the Maritimes right?
So he you know very sort
of he just sort of easy to access
kind of guy. The kid loved being in his
shadow. So the kid I suppose he hung out
by this guy for like a week or so, to
protect himself, right? His adaptation,
his pathway, his navigation to the resources
he needed. About after a week, the janitor
looks at this kid, and goes, and he had a
bit of a sort of a Newfoundland brogue
or whatever, so I can't quite do it, so anyway he kind of says to the kid,
"Well bloody hell. If you're always going
to be underfoot you might as well pick
up a mop and give me a hand." Now I don't
know about occupational health and
safety laws and stuff like that. I'm sure he
just broke every single one, right?
By having the kid help. But basically, the
kid picks up the mop and begins to sort
of mop the floor, with the janitor, on the
breaks. Now a whole bunch of things
magically happen in that case. The child
begins to feel a genuine connection and
contribution to the welfare of this
adult. He's actually being mentored by
this adult right? And what's also neat is
his changing relationship with his other
peer group. Because let's face it. If you walk into us into a
public building, and someone is mopping,
you have to be one mean little f'er if
you're gonna walk across that wet floor
right? You tend to defer. So suddenly this kid,
who always was being jostled in the
play in the playground, jostled in the
hallway, picked on and everything else, he's
holding a mop. He's mopping the floor.
The kids do this around him. He
literally parts them with his mop.
Now my point is that what you see there is a
pattern where this kid was getting a
very powerful identity, a sense of
efficacy or control, through that
relationship, not with his parent, who is
a very stressed individual with addiction
problems and poverty and a lot of other
stuff going on. The janitor had set
some structure, some consequences. The
child had a sense of belonging -
number seven, in this world that had become his
space finally. He had, in a sense,
a purpose to go to school again. I'm going to
argue he even had a bit of social justice.
Finally people were treating him,
the one who was mildly, quote-unquote
in his mind, disfigured, awkward-looking,
the one who dressed poorly.
Suddenly he was being treated fairly, and what's
more, he felt safe.
I could go on, literally for hours, telling you story
after story after story like that
in which this matrix of these nine factors
come together in a child's life.
Now, here's the interesting thing. These can all be facilitated by us -
by programs, by interventions, by good social
policy, just like, by the way, it was
interesting this morning we heard
a couple of people, I think, David, you
mentioned the adverse childhood
experience studies and I think Dan also
sort of alluded to those. I'm sure
everyone in the room is familiar with the
Adverse Childhood Experience Studies.
Those 10 things that if it happened to
you before your 18th birthday, things
like exposure to violence, sexual abuse,
victimization, a parent goes to jail,
divorce, parent with mental illness, and
addiction, all those kinds of things
right?
What's interesting about those...
Have you ever noticed that list though?
All 10 of those are preventable, social factors.
None of them are internal, individual factors.
Have you noticed that?
They can all be addressed by social policy.
In other words, if you want to address heart
disease and diabetes and somatic
illnesses and a variety of other things
which are the outcome of a high ACE score,
you can actually do that by using good
social policy and good social interventions
interventions in a child's early life. Isn't that wild?
The same thing here.
All nine of these things that produce
resilience are not only about the individual.
Now, if you did all nine of
these things, you would probably produce
a child who's going to have a very much
more positive attitude towards life,
who's gonna have, you know, going to be
able to, sort of, have the robustness to
get through a crisis. If you added to
this, by the way, mindfulness practices, if
you add to this a cognitive behavioral
intervention that allowed the child to,
sort of, begin to sort of not misperceive
and catastrophize their life when bad
things do happen, and you add all these
things,
then you're getting essentially what it is that makes us resilient.
It's that combination of things.
