A Conversation On Resilience – Parenting With Lessons Rather Than Lectures
“Son, I don’t want to be one of those annoying parents who nitpick about how much her child is eating, but I feel I have to share with you my concerns. You are getting really skinny. And maybe it’s because you are going through a growth spurt, or maybe it’s because you aren’t eating enough to sustain your natural weight. Either way, I think you ought to consider putting more fuel into your body.”
I’d just given another boring lecture on life.
Now, of course, I did feel like a nitpicking parent when I said these words to my son. We were sharing a meal in the oldest Uighur village of China, just East of Turpan, and he’d barely touched the food on his dish—neither the noodles, nor the typical local fare of rice with vegetables, raisins, and mutton. He didn’t say anything in return, which was a sure sign that I’d just given another boring lecture on life, creating a wedge between us—distance rather than connection.
It wasn’t until the next day that this lecture, to my surprise and delight, turned into a conversation. Ah-ha! An opportunity to create a lasting lesson with my son. Hopefully, a moment of parenting as a good teacher. Here is how it went:
Mama, I’ve been thinking…
Mama, I’ve been thinking about why I haven’t been eating that much, and it’s because I don’t really like unfamiliar things.
You mean, you don’t like unfamiliar food? Or unfamiliar places? (Good teachers ask a lot of questions.)
Well, both, really.
Did you like that fried dough stick you ate yesterday? Or the dumplings?
Not really, no.
Can you think of anything you’ve eaten in the past week that you did like?
Ummm, you know the spicy tomato dish? I liked the tomatoes that weren’t spicy. And the melon, that was good.
The conversation went on like this for a bit, highlighting the idea that while we are traveling, there are, indeed, some things my son is enjoying eating, albeit not everything. How, though, to generalize the lesson into something bigger? I pulled my husband into the conversation to help flesh it out a bit.
Set the proper tone for communication.
First, he set the proper tone for communication. My son had started talking with a mopey lilt to his voice, dooming the direction of our conversation to the doldrums. He alerted our son to the improper tone, requested a change, and the possibility of a positive exchange re-opened.
We were walking in a quiet, dusty alleyway of Turpan, mud-brick homes on either side of us, no scooters whizzing by, no electronic devices of any kind, actually, nothing to act as a distraction from the conversation at hand. It continued:
Son, you know that there are children who only eat chicken fingers with ketchup. Have you met some of those children?
Yes. (Important to wait for an answer, no matter how small, so that the dialogue remains two-sided.)
And you know that those kids, when they go to El Paso (one of our favorite restaurants back home), despite all the delicious things on the menu there, will still order chicken fingers?
Yes.
Why?
So, why do you think it’s so important to us that you be able to eat unfamiliar food in unfamiliar places?
(He thinks a while, and we wait.)
It’s because I need to be able to eat things even if my favorite food isn’t there.
Why? (A good teacher checks for understanding over and over again!)
Well, sometimes it’s the polite thing to do. (Yesterday, we spotlighted how his father accepted the gift of a home-dried raisin from a local family, even though he doesn’t like them) And you have to eat to survive.
Yes. I’d like to point out that you must be doing something right. We’ve been traveling in foreign countries for three months now; if you weren’t successfully eating unfamiliar foods in unfamiliar places, you’d be dead by now! But let me also add something that I think is important. The kid who only eats chicken fingers is missing out on so many delicious things to eat!
We talk about resilience a lot in our family!
(At this point, I chimed in to draw the lesson out even further.) You know, son, you brought up how being flexible in your food choices makes your life more functional, and your papa pointed to how it makes your life more fulfilling. (These are familiar concepts we’ve discussed before; we talk about resilience a lot in our family!) And don’t you think that the idea of being open to unfamiliar things can be good in ways other than food choices? Like the activities you choose?
Oh, yeah! (The sounds of a lightbulb turning on, now I know we are creating a good lesson together.) Like when I wanted to go to soccer camp, but it was all filled up so I had to try a sports camp instead and I liked it even better!
To Re-Cap…
To re-cap: we asked a lot of questions to create a lesson rather than a lecture. We set the proper tone and ensured we did not have any distractions. We checked for understanding. We looked for ways to generalize the lesson so our son can use it in multiple contexts. This felt like a success! We hope that you create some conversations with your children today to help them be more resilient, so that they may live functional and fulfilling lives.