Adopting from Foster Care Blog

05/16/06

Resiliency

Posted by : Michelle Vandepas in Foster Adoption Blog at 02:10 pm , 306 words, 584 views
Categories: Foster-Adopt General

re·sil·ience (ri-zil'y?ns)

The ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy.

The property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed; elasticity.

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If someone tells me one more time that kids are resilient, I think I'll scream.

Yes of course they are resilient, when it is needed. So are adults. We learn how to stretch until we think we will break, how to recover, bounce back, but never to be the same again. Some of us learn this earlier than others, but we all have to be able to move on with life, flow with what comes, and even if we don't do it well, we learn to somehow bounce back.

Circumstances dictate when resiliency is necessary.

It is necessary when your life changes dramatically .........
..... when a hurricane ravages your home.
.....Or when you suddenly loose your job.

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.....Or if you are a child and your parents scew up your life real bad.

If you are a resilient person, you bounce back. If you don't, you go down. What choice do you have?

It's the same with kids. They bounce back, doing what they need to do to stay afloat.

Flexibility, accepting change, avoiding turning everything into a drama can help you deal with crises and bounce back quickly. These are skills that take time to learn.

Being pulled from your home and taken to a ‘new family, requires resilience.

I'm not sure that is a skill that kids should learn so young.

Today, I pick up Rick and bring him home for thirty days. Apparently he's been crying telling his mom he doesn't want to come. He doesn't have that choice. Mom has to go to jail.

My friend says, don't worry, he'll bounce back. Children are so resilient....

6 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Dr. G [Member]

· http://older-parent.adoptionblogs.com/

Yes, it is a maddening thought isn't it. And you're right we toss the word around,probably to keep ourselves from going mad. But, I'm one of those reseliency propaganda pushers. When you see so much of it in children who have suffered the unspeakable, even the youngest of the young, well, it just makes a believer out of you.

Permalink 05/16/06 @ 15:53

Comment from: hsaxton [Member]

My son is one of the resilient ones, though it is not something I would have predicted three years ago. He was an angry, angry, angry little boy whose only intelligible word was "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Today he is a sensitive, articulate, affectionate little boy. His world is full of dinosaurs and Super Heroes and not one of the ugly, biting creatures that used to stalk his nightmares.
Every day I look at him, and am so grateful we stuck with him. Even when he tried to smother his sister, and belt the priest, and act out the other unspeakables in most distressing ways.
Because kids are resilient... I wrote a love letter to their birth mother today!

Hugs,
Heidi Saxton
streamsofmercy.blogspot.com

Permalink 05/16/06 @ 16:34

Comment from: Julie [Member]

· http://special-needs.adoptionblogs.com/

Michelle,

I'm with ya! The school behavior specialist says LuLu is "academically resilient" so in his opinion it doesn't matter where we place her she's going to try her hardest to learn.

So, that translates to the school as we don't have to give her any services even though she's severely impaired...instead let's just rely on her incredible quest for knowledge and desire to learn and when her explosive behaviors come to the surface, let's suspend her, because that really upsets her. She can't possibly be exploding BECAUSE she's having trouble learning, after all she's "academically resilient."

Oops...guess your post touched a nerve. I'll go back to being resilient ;-)

Permalink 05/16/06 @ 18:02

Comment from: Sandra Hanks Benoiton [Member]

· http://international.adoptionblogs.com/

Right on, Michelle.

Resilient does not mean impenetrable ... everything sinks in and stays there ... and bouncing back does not negate the bruising that happens in the process.

It's a cop out, and one that puts the burden of survival on the kids. That may be the reality, but it's not nice, nor is it helpful.

Permalink 05/16/06 @ 21:03

Comment from: hsaxton [Member]

Calling a child "resilient" a cop out? Hmmm... I don't know about that. I think it's the hope that keeps us going, believing that they will not always be doing (or expressing) the trauma of the immediate past the way they do now.

Yes, they will need help to heal.

Yes, the bruising is real.

But if every foster/adoptive parent thought that their children were ALWAYS going to _______, or that the pain would always be as real and as present as it is right now... well, frankly, I don't know if I could take 18+ years of what I went through the first six months.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what is meant by "resilient." To me, the word is synonymous with "having inner strength." Not all children have it, of course -- some are broken by their experiences. I thank God every day that mine were blessed to receive it.

And I am blessed to nurture it and watch it grow into a lifelong habit.

Permalink 05/17/06 @ 10:11

Comment from: Michelle Vandepas [Member]

· http://fost-adopt.adoptionblogs.com/

Thanks for all your comments guys.. Its funny, I write a quick bit to post and it takes a few minutes just cuz I'm upset about something and it generates all these comments!....

....We DO all need to be resilient. I just wish it wasn't always forced upon us...

Heidi, I love that you think about it as inner strength. Thanks for that!

Permalink 05/17/06 @ 19:35

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