By Maurice J. Elias, Ph.D. from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
Think of adolescence as a journey, or a passage from childhood toward adulthood. A main purpose of the journey is to find points along the way that allow adolescents to approach adulthood with a growing sense of a healthy identity, a positive set of answers to questions of "Who am I?" and "What can I become?" But they will encounter roadblocks along the way. It's inevitable. What determines the extent to which teens bounce back from life's challenges?
The traditional explanation is that it is resilient teens who can deal with difficulty, triumph over challenges, and overcome obstacles. Resilience, or resiliency, is usually thought of as a trait, an attribute of individuals that renders them less subject to the negative effects of stress. In Norman Garmezy's early work, he referred to "invulnerable children," those who, in his work and those of others (e.g., Emmy Werner), appeared to come through the most dire circumstances -- wars, floods, severe parental disability -- with psychological and physical health intact, or at least relatively so.
While it would be foolish to doubt categorically that such people exist, it is not helpful in general to think of resilience as a trait. Rather, we find it most useful to think of resilience primarily as a property of one's resources in life and how one uses them. Conversations with teens reveal this very clearly. Perhaps the most accessible of these is from the Bouncing Back segment of the new LifeSteps video series. In story after story, teens say that it was key people in their lives that enabled them to bounce back from crisis, despair, suicidal thoughts, drugs, etc. Someone reached out to them, someone helped them to see the best parts of themselves that they had lost sight of, someone rekindled a lost sense of hope, someone lit a spark. In all these instances, the teens themselves had to grasp the opportunity. But the first step was to create the possibility.
Indeed, if we were to look carefully at instances of resilience, we would find that in most cases, there were key people who showed help and caring; there were tangible support resources at key moments; there were early emotional memories that left the ability to feel love, hope, and optimism. Certainly, individuals differ in their attunement to environmental factors and even to their ability to tap their own strengths and experiences. But a trait-based concept of resilience is likely to place disproportionate emphasis on the responsibility of teens to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. A more contemporary view is that resilience is enhanced when responsible adults -- educators, counselors, parents, youth workers, coaches, community leaders -- provide as many supports in the environment as can be mustered, based on the assumption that encounters with such supports will be strengthening to virtually all youth.
How To Support Resilience In Youth
Toward what should these supports be directed? In the book, Raising Emotionally Intelligent Teenagers: Guiding the Way for Compassionate, Committed, Courageous Adults (Random House/Three Rivers Press, 2002), my colleagues and I outline what it is our teens need to foster their resilience, and everyday ways that parents and others can provide them. Here is a summary of the areas we cover:
Opportunities for Contribution
There may appear to be a teen tendency toward being self-centered, but that is really because the teen years are so much about self-discovery, not really about selfishness -- unless we allow it to go in that direction. Teens actually thrive on helping, on making contributions to causes, saving the environment, helping senior citizens, teaching what they know to younger, needier kids, working in soup kitchens, helping in political campaigns, raising funds for people who are suffering, helping their religious institutions reach their charitable goals. Contributions are part of what helps teens -- and adults -- feel a sense of fulfillment.
Opportunities for Meaningful Belonging
Teens need groups to belong to. That's what motivates some to join gangs. They are looking for places where they:
- have a role
- feel a sense of purpose
- discover positive peer relationships
- join others who have similar interests or abilities
- learn things
- experience inspiring leadership
- find a safe, comfortable, accepting place to be.
Sounds like an ideal extended family, doesn't it? Now, unfortunately, this describes too few families. But clubs, teams, youth groups, and community organizations also can foster a sense of belonging. Caretakers of teens have a role in making sure that groups provide what teens are looking for in a healthy way.
Opportunities to Display Their Talents
What are the cherished talents of teenagers you work with or live with? Maybe you see it in their hobbies. Maybe you don't see it because it happens in the privacy of their rooms or only with trusted friends. Be alert to what it is teens really like to do and seem good at. It might be math, science, languages, writing, computers, creating media, art, music, getting along with other people, sports, dance, outdoor activities, sailing, selling -- the list is endless. Howard Gardner refers to the "multiple intelligences" as the range of talents that children have. Their future identities are strengthened when they have positive outlets to express and develop these talents. Giving your teens a chance to discover and develop their talents is a bit tricky and sometimes leads to a dead end, but these efforts can make a life-changing difference.
Opportunities to Develop Life Skills
Many will wonder, what about independence and autonomy? Isn't that what adolescence is all about? Perhaps this was true at one time. But we live in an interdependent world. There is no such thing, in any practical sense, as independence and autonomy. That's not to say that they should be dependent. What we really want is for our youth to have life skills to deal with a range of possible opportunities. These include the skills of Emotional Intelligence, to have the balance of "smart" and "heart" that one really needs to manage effectively and sensitively in the world today. Educators and parents need to look for opportunities that will allow teens to learn more about their feelings and those of others, how to manage their own strong feelings (often so that they can carry out essential responsibilities), how to set goals and plan (both long and short term), how to work in groups as team players and as leaders, how to build positive relationships with many different kinds of people, how to be thoughtful problem solvers and decision makers, and how to bounce back from roadblocks that they face. (Parents can find much more information about building these skills in my book, "Emotionally Intelligent Parenting.")
Resilience in youth is a combination of many things. However, their ability to bounce back from difficulty can be enhanced by certain key experiences and supports that have been outlined above. Especially in their teenage years, they will experience emotionally intense setbacks and obstacles along their journey to adulthood. With the right kinds of supports from adults around them, those strong emotions will neither hold them back nor misdirect them. Then, teen aspirations can soar into adult accomplishment.
