Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child
Julia Simens
Never underestimate the power of a five-year-old. When it comes to brainpower, a five-year–old has you beat: the metabolic energy consumed by a child's brain is 225 percent of that of an adult.
This may just be one of the reasons that expat children have the ability to be so resilient in their ever-changing, globally nomadic lifestyle.
But just how resilient are you raising your children to be?
Resilience
Resilience refers to the ability to bounce back when things are not going well. It is usually shown in a person's attributes. The more positive attributes your child has, the greater their chances for developing a strong resilience.
To help our expat children develop resilience, we should work on three key areas. First, we should help our children understand the vocabulary of their emotions. Second, we should ensure that our children have positive role models. And third, we should help our children increase their persistence levels.
Building a Vocabulary
The first thing an expat family should do is build up a socially appropriate vocabulary for emotions that their children can understand. Then, it is important to build their awareness of the physical signs, which differ for all children, in order to help them understand how their emotions can make their bodies feel.
Importantly, parents should teach their children how to calm themselves. Deep breathing is one technique that can be explained to a child as young as three. Role modeling calm behavior is another. This means staying calm and/or calming down yourself when things do not go right abroad, so that your children can learn from your behavior.
Positive Role Models
The second area an expat family should proactively address is the need for positive role models for their children. As expats move around the world, it is likely grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are thousands of miles away. These people normally serve as important role models for young children, so without them nearby, it is important not to replace them, but to find more of them!
Otherwise, families are relying exclusively on the parents or guardians raising them. This would mean that the children would miss out on so many ideas from other adults. We are all different and we all have so much to offer to young children. The more healthy adult and friend connections, the better! (And this includes role models of both genders – and of various ages.)
Persistence
The third area to focus on is persistence. Does your child stick to a task until it is completed? Does your child complete homework assignments on time? Do they sign up for an activity or sport and then want to drop it?
Persistence is an area that families all over the world need to work on. But for expat families especially, this is important because too often the ability to drop out of things "because we are leaving soon" masks the underlying issue – lack of persistence. Expat kids (and expat adults) can see leaving as an opportunity to run or hide from things. We need to persist and to encourage our children to persist, no matter what.
Using positive vocabulary helps. For example, these comments emphasize and encourage persistence:
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Play
One additional factor of resilience that is often overlooked in our hectic expat life style is the notion of play. One of my favorite quotes, said by a six-year-old boy, is, "A father is someone who plays with you even when he has friends his own age to play with."
As an expat family, do you constantly rush from one after-school activity or one holiday location to another? Can your child play with others and also play alone? Does your child spend more time in front of 'screens' than reading, playing and other active pursuits? Does your child know how to keep themselves occupied or do they depend on others or technology to occupy and stimulate them? Does your child enjoy playing games and joining in fun activities with you?
Every family is unique but we can all benefit from limiting the number of our children's extra-curricular activities. If you feel you cannot limit these activities, then at least limit the days after school your child has to be busy.
It is never too late to start collecting memories of your child's emotions. This is especially true for children who are global nomads. Due to the fast pace of our lives, we seldom have time to close certain chapters. We get on a plane and within hours of departing one culture we land in another. Parents locate new homes, establish new routines, and hire new 'quasi family members'. Families start all over again. As we Skype, Twitter and blog ourselves around the world, we need to take time out to collect some emotional memories that are beneficial for the whole family. You can strengthen your child's resilience and by doing so make a significant and positive change in their life. |
