Resilient Families Archives - Bounceback Parenting

Resilient Families

We’re learning how to create a resilient, emotionally healthy family culture. Here you’ll find honest parenting stories and ideas for developing resilient families. We’re letting go of perfect, we’re forgiving ourselves over and over and we’re growing together.

Glad you’re here!

I am not psychologist or therapist, I am a mom who has studied and implemented ideas I’ve found on family resilience and connection for the sake of my own family, and I am a parenting mentor who has worked with other families helping them create more connection and positive communication in their own families. The perspectives shared here on Bounceback Parenting come from my own experiences and studies.

I do my best to share honestly about the unexpected challenges, fears frustrations we’ve faced in our family, and many readers share in the comments as well. Knowing you are not alone is validating and comforting.

A few of my influences in regards to parenting and family resilience include:
(These are Amazon affiliate links).

Strengthening Family Resilience by Froma Walsh, Ph.D.
Mindset by Carol Dweck Ph.D.
Mindsight by Dan Siegel M.D.
Connection Parenting by Pam Leo
Taking the War Out of Our Words by Sharon Strand Ellison

What does it mean to be a resilient family?

First, we may need to change perspective here. A resilient family isn’t a fixed state of being, something you either are or are not. Family resilience is something we can grow over time by cultivating family processes and capabilities that allow us to cope with difficulties, learn from challenges, and solve problems together.

“Resilience can be defined as the capacity to rebound from adversity strengthened and more resourceful.” “What distinguishes healthy families is not the absence of problems or suffering but rather their coping and problem solving abilities.”
~Froma Walsh

Some of the topics I talk about here on Bounceback Parenting that helps you develop greater resilience in your family include:

Practicing Presence: Trying to find a bit more mindfulness and bit less judgement in ourselves so that we increase the ability to pause and respond rather than simply reacting.
Strengths-Based Perspective: Empowering our children and ourselves. Developing a growth mindset in our families.
Open Communication: Improving the clarity of our communication through better listening, and deepening our understanding of our own communication habits and needs.
Emotional Health: Learning more about healthy experience and expression of emotions in ourselves and others.
Flexible Routines – Simplifying daily routines of family life to increase your ability to bounce back when the inevitable disruptions occur.

Hare are a few of readers favorite posts on these topics, and of course you can find more in my other categories on connecting with kids, dealing with anger, and taking care of yourself.

Oct 5

How to Teach Gratitude to a Child – Four Parts of Gratefulness

More than saying an automatic 'thank you', gratitude is a character strength that supports our most positive life experiences and it’s much more than good manners. When I looked at how to teach gratitude to a child, beyond the basics of sending a thank you note, I learned that researchers at the [...]Continue Reading

Aug 30

Problem Solving for Parents – How to Ask Questions That Will Get You Better Help

Problem solving as a parent sometimes fills me with confusion and overwhelm. I find myself seeing all of things going wrong and despairing at figuring anything out. One of the things I've always had difficulty with is asking for help. Not because I don't want it, but because I get confused [...]Continue Reading

Jul 3

10 Phrases to Encourage Resilience

At the beginning of my parenting journey I unknowingly passed by hundreds of opportunities for me and my kids to develop resilience. In my book Bounceback Parenting I explain that I made the mistake of thinking that my job was to make everything easy or comfortable for my kids. I often offered help [...]Continue Reading

May 31

Red Flag Words – How to understand what your child really needs

As the end of the school year neared, both of my sons struggled with final projects. It was exhausting to have evenings filled with arguments about why they couldn't possible get their work done. This was particularly bad one evening last week with one boy morosely sitting at the table not working [...]Continue Reading

May 8

How Mistakes Can Strengthen Our Families

I used to have a very hard time seeing anything but the ways I had failed when I faced struggles as a parent. If I was dealing with siblings fighting, I figured it was because I had done everything wrong and failed to teach the kids to get along. If one of my kids struggled to focus when [...]Continue Reading

Mar 13

A Mantra for the Most Overwhelming Days

For the month of March, Bounceback Texts are focusing on reducing overwhelm. One of the keys to reducing this terrible feeling is changing your mindset, and that's what the mantra in this post can help you do. Sometimes overwhelm creeps up on me. It happens most often when I get wrapped up in all [...]Continue Reading