Resilience

I started writing a resilience article as a thought piece, but it felt very self-indulgent (which it was). In it I used an analogy, so instead of presenting my unsubstantiated opinion, here's a fictional story:

The waterfall

The children and their parents stood at the bottom of the waterfall. It was beautiful, the water rushing down, the rocks shining and gleaming as the cascade tumbled past and clouds of water droplets shone in the sunshine. Each side there were large boulders, suitable for climbing. “Let’s go to the top!” said mother. The children looked excited. 

“No.” said father. “It’s wet and slippery, and could be dangerous.” Of course, it would involve some risk – but with care the waterfall could be ascended quite safely.

 

 “Come on,” said mother, feeling the risk was acceptable.

 “No.” said father. Unwilling to take a chance, however small, on any of them slipping. 

“I’ll go,” said mother, “and tell you what it’s like”. She climbed, and it was safe – the rocks at the side were not wet and slick and were easy to climb. She reached the top. She had assessed the risk and anticipated the reward – and reward there was! The view was amazing – watching the cascading water below and looking across the fabulous landscape at the top. 

“Come on up,” she shouted down. “No.” said father and the children listened to him, because they always obeyed their father, even though they could see mother at the top, and how happy and excited she was, and they wanted to see and feel that too. The children missed out on the view, and the experience. They may have slipped, they may have bruised or even broken, but they never found out how beautiful it was to feel the thrill of climbing a waterfall and reaching the top. 

Do you think that we protect our children too much, that we don’t teach them to manage risk but to avoid it? Do you think this impacts their capacity for resilience and, long term, mental health?After posting this on LinkedIn – I was usefully directed to this by Josie Jacobs: ‘The Gift of Failure’ by Jessica Lahey - which speaks directly to this issue. She describes us as the generation that “invented over-parenting” - and despite our best intentions, we are robbing our children of their failures and therefore their learnings…and their natural resilience! When we take away our children’s opportunities to fail and learn (FAIL = First Attempt In Learning no less!), they never learn to trust their instincts and develop their innate resilience. We are in fact a very resilient bunch but - true of adults too - we have all lost touch with our own intuition. It’s not just parents but schools too - a friend’s school has just banned football because people were getting hurt… what about if we taught our kids HOW to play nicely or HOW to climb 🧗🏽‍♂️ safely… both the boulders you speak of, and this life?! 😊

Challenged!

My writing buddy Cathy and I were chatting on line and I said how nice it will be not to write about cancer for a chance. I asked her for a challenge, and she said to write a story for my grandson! So here goes... (this is written to be read aloud)

Deep below the slippy slimy sludgy grunge, there lived a Blobby Grubber. Now you will have never seen a Blobby Grubber I'm sure, because you will never have gone deep below the slippy slimy sludgy grunge! The blobby grubber looks blue and green, like the slippy slimy sludgy grunge he lives below, so he can hide very quickly when the Gloop Monsters come. 

If you tried to grab a Blobby Grubber you'd never succeed - they are squirmy and soft and can slide out of the grasp of almost anything! The other things that live beneath the slippy slimy sludgy grunge are the small and speedy Tiddflippers, and they flit about like little lightning bolts, their shiny neon stripes lighting up the dark world beneath the slippy slimy sludgy grunge turning it into a funfair of colour. There are also the Glup Truggers, which are fat and slow, and live on the bottom, clearing up the grungy bits that fall to the floor of the slippy, slimy sludgy grunge. The Glup Truggers were often chased by Gloop Monsters, so they would bury themselves in the grunge at thte bottom, and hide until the Gloopers had gone.

One particular Blobby Grubber, called Groop, lived a long time ago beneath the slippy slimy sludgy grunge and - he thought - what is above? He was a curious Blobby Grubber and wanted to see more of the world than  his dark, slippy slimy world. But he didn't know how to get above the grunge, so, he needed help.

He asked the Tiddflippers if they ever went above the grunge, and they said no, there was too much fun to be had rushing around below.  

OK - I have by no means finished this story. My question is - do you want me to? Every story should have a beginning, middle and end - but all I have here is the beginning. And there's lots of 'tell' instead of 'show'. But which is best for children's fiction? Any suggestions appreciated - please comment below!

If I had to illustrate this story, I just might use a blobfish....

Photo Credit: Wonderopolis