Resilient Families Archives - Page 3 of 15

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.

Dec 31

Dealing with Annoying Mouth Noises – How to handle repetitive impulsive sounds

Maybe the key to dealing with mouth noises isn't to stop them altogether, but to find a new way to direct those impulses. A reader wrote in about her six year old son who seems to constantly be making annoying, repetitive mouth noises. What are these noises all about? And what can we do about them? [...]Continue Reading

Dec 1

Gifts of a Bike Crash – Healing the Scrapes on your Soul

This week I had an experience that gave me a physical reminder about how important it is to care for myself if I want to be a connected, positive parent. I took a fall on my bike and managed to very badly scrape my forearm. It was gross. I won't go into it more, but it's the kind of wound that [...]Continue Reading

Nov 12

Meditation on Breathing – for those in distress

Each week I send Bounceback Parenting Learning Lounge members a check-in email. It's both a message with a bit of learning that I've gained recently, and a reminder to members to reflect and think back on the week, integrating lessons learned. I decided this week's check-in was one I wanted to share [...]Continue Reading

Aug 25

The No Rescue Policy: Why it’s Time

Have a totally forgetful kid? This post is for you. Today we welcome back Amy McCready, positive parenting author and educator. I refer to Amy's book, The Me, Me, Me Epidemic in my post on how I'm dealing with entitlement in my family, and she's written this as a follow up for us on a positive [...]Continue Reading

Jul 20

Just ignore him – sometimes we need to pause before we speak

When I read this story I knew I wanted to share it with more people. This mom's perceptive look at the habits we have in our speech illustrates the value of intentionally adding more positive phrases to say to kids to our repertoire. As she says below - this is not a teacher trying to be negative, [...]Continue Reading