115: Building Real Resilience in Kids (Even When It’s Hard)

MK: Sometimes I catch myself frustrated at how impatient our kids can be and how entitled they sometimes behave. But then I remember I'm the same way, at least to a degree, you know, the world has made it just way too easy to get whatever we want instantly. So today I wanna talk about how we are trying as a family.

To slow down, build patience, and raise kids who can handle life when it's not instant. Welcome to the Primer Chief Podcast, and this episode was inspired by a podcast episode of Dr. Becky. She's a clinical psychologist, uh, focusing on parenting and, and, and children. And today on the way back from breakfast, my wife and I have our weekly, had our weekly breakfast, uh, date after dropping off the kids at their homeschooling group, and she played that episode for me and.

That episode hit me hard because Dr. Becky shared a memory from her childhood, you know, planning a movie night with friends, and it wasn't like today where you open Netflix and you are set in 10 seconds. You know, back in the days it meant asking your parents to drive you to Blockbuster, waiting until they had time driving there and maybe discovering that the movie you wanted wasn't available anymore.

You know, that was very frustrating, but it trained something important. Patience. Effort and the ability to deal with disappointment despite your best effort. But today, those reps are gone. And so I paused the episode as soon as I heard that example and I told my wife, you realize what you have started, right?

Because you might have just convinced me to cancel every streaming service we have because I completely agree. And it's obviously just one of many examples. But that story hit me because I remembered those nights too. You know, the anticipation, the drive, um, you know, maybe the, the, the thought of, oh, we're gonna have popcorn, you know, on the way back to have them with the movie.

And then more often than not, you know, you, you go there, you arrive at Blockbuster, whatever, you know, movie rental service, uh, you had in your respective country. For us, it wasn't Blockbuster, it was something else. And. And the movie wasn't there, you know? And I was like, oh, you know, now I have to pick something else.

I have to come up with an alternative. But that forced me to adapt, you know, and to pick something else and still have a good night, you know? And that cycle, waiting for something, working for it, and sometimes getting disappointed, you know, built mental toughness without anyone calling it that, because back then patience was built into life.

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Today we have the opposite. Everything is on demand, and you can see how that rewires us, both adults as well as children. More, more so children, I wanna say, who have not experienced a different way of doing things like you and I maybe had when we were children. And research even backs this up. You know, studies have shown that when kids have the chance to practice waiting, not just being told to, they develop stronger emotional regulation and long-term resilience.

And the same goes for frustration tolerance. Kids who are allowed to face small disappointments and recover from them handle bigger challenges later without later with more confidence. It's kind of like. The whole idea of hormesis, you know what doesn't kill you, make you stronger in a little bit of cold exposure, A little bit of hot exposure makes you more resilient and better at handling those situations.

And the same goes for frustration and for disappointment as well. The problem is that our modern life has removed those micro struggles. There is no more waiting. There is no friction, there is no plan B thinking, you know, that's not progress, that's fragility, disguised as convenience. And I'm not saying all of this is someone who is nailed it.

In fact, this has been a big area of growth for the Kummer family lately. You know, my wife and I have been realizing that our kids and, and honestly. We too, to a degree, have grown, used to getting things fast. You know, want to watch something, click, need batteries. Amazon delivers them tomorrow hungry, let's just run to the store real quick and get whatever we need that's missing for the dinner.

We wanna prepare, you know, and that realization is hit even harder now that we've decided. To move to the country, you know, soon there won't be same day delivery with Amazon, there won't be, oh, I'll just run through the store real quick, uh, and get our favorite organic, what have you, because either the store is not there, it's too far away, or it doesn't have the, the same, uh, breadth of products that we have access to here in, in the city.

So we'll have to get creative, you know, use what we have, wait plan, and sometimes. Just go without. And while part of me knows that'll be inconvenient, another part is excited because I want our kids to experience the satisfaction of earning comfort, not just consuming it. So we've started implementing a couple of small things already.

You know, we say we, we add, we put more boundaries in front of our kids. You know, sometimes the answer is just no. Even though. We can, you know, screen time is limited to have a certain amount of, uh, a certain timeframe throughout the day where they can use a device for research, for homework, for whatever the case might be.

In other cases, it's just no. You know, we are also, we are letting our kids be bored, you know, on purpose. You know, being bored is a good thing. It makes you think of, okay, what can I do? Or just enjoy doing Nothing. You, you gotta be okay with doing nothing as well, you know? And also making them part of the process for things they want, you know, saving, waiting, helping, working for it.

And that's not always smooth, obviously, you know, sometimes it feels like we are swimming upstream, but those moments, the whining, the, you know, why can't we just, you know, that's exactly where resilience is built. And here is what's been working for us and what hasn't. You know, as we try to build more resilience into our home, affecting us as well as our children, number one.

You know, we just let them wait. You know, sometimes, or often it sounds small, but we've been letting our kids just. Wait for things more often. You know, dessert, you know, doesn't come right away. You know, toys aren't instant and you can literally see that discomfort on their faces when we say you have to wait, you have to be patient.

But that's the training. You know, we let them fail. Safely, of course, but fail nonetheless. You know? So instead of rescuing them so quickly, you know, if they spill something, they clean it up. If they forget to pack something for an outing or for, you know, their homeschooling group or whatever, they deal with the consequences.

If they are cold because they're left the jacket at home, they are a cold, you know, that thing is important. We allow them to help. You know, we've added more chores. In fact, the kids take care of, of our. Animal of our livestock in the morning and in the evening. You know, not as punishment. But as a contribution, you know, they need to contribute in the home with the animals, with many of the other things.

Our daughter, she's 12 now. She washes her own clothes, you know? Um, I remember, I mean, that's one of the things where, uh, I think our mom was, my mom, uh, was maybe a little bit too, um. Trying to make us make life easy for us, uh, because she washed for us for a very long time and, and cooked for us in an our case.

If the kids are hungry and it's not at a time when we had or my wife had planned on cooking, they have to cook for themselves. The other day they had apparently not very much, uh, for breakfast. And at 3:00 PM or 2:00 PM they're like, oh, I'm so hungry. And they cook themselves steak with plantains or by themselves without any of our help or intervention.

And they apparently can do it. And we let them do that. We encourage them. If you need something, if you want to have your clothes washed and it's not washing day for us, then you gotta do it yourself. And that's turned into a routine where now our 12-year-old is washing all of her clothes by herself. We no longer wash her clothes well.

I haven't anyway, but my wife doesn't do it in her anymore. You know? So allowing them to do those things, to take care of those chores, you know, that builds a sense of competence and belonging. And honestly, it's been incredibly powerful for us. And then number four, obviously we try to model it ourselves.

And this one is, we fail sometimes, you know? Um, but I realize it's that I've sometimes as impatient as my kids. And so it's important. You know, whether it is a webpage not loading or you know, something that doesn't ship or got delayed in shipping or whatever, and I really need it. Usually it's something important like, you know, for a review, for a blog, whatever, but it doesn't, at the end of it doesn't really matter what the reason is.

You know, I catch myself getting frustrated, so I'm trying my best to model patients in real time. The problem here is that the world isn't going to slow down. Um, it's. I feel like it's been getting faster and faster and faster. So it's up to us as parents to create moments of friction intentionally because friction is where growth happens.

Because when we remove all obstacles, we remove all opportunities for learning and for growing and for building that muscle memory that ultimately leads to resilient kids. And Dr. Beck said something along the lines of, you know, you are not, kids are not born with. Resilience. It has to be learned and built by experience.

And that really stuck with me. And,

and I sometimes, or in the past, I, I forgot, you know, I got very easily agitated when, you know, the kid's like, oh, you know, I don't want to eat this, or I don't want to eat that, or, there's nothing to eat, or, you know, I need a new toy because I'm so bored. And it, it, it, it just. Drove me incredibly nuts and I, I couldn't help but, but think about, you know, how entitled those kids are.

Our kids are, and I, there were cases where I told them that you guys have no idea what it means to be hungry. You have no idea what it means to have nothing. And the world we live in with. Having access to highly nutritious food all the time to way too many toys. I mean, again, everything is relative, is a relative argument.

I think our kids, relatively speaking, have very few toys, but way more than what I would like. And well, the, the bottom line here really is I realized that how can I blame kids, our kids, for feeling entitled to what they've experienced all of their life? Of course, for them, everything feels normal. Why is it, you know, why would it not be normal to have a fridge and a freezer full of food?

Why is it not normal to have, you know, variety of toys and access to. You know, information all the time and, and, and, and being able to order on Amazon or an Instacart and running to the store real quick if you need something, all of this is entirely normal for them. Why wouldn't it be? And I'm like, well, I can't really blame them.

For taking everything for granted because that's the world we put them into and the environment we put them into, we set that up for them. We provided the framework that they live in, and so of course everything appears to be normal for them. You know, they have not experienced anything else, so I'm like, okay, I can't really be mad with them, but it's really up to us now to peel back those layers.

And show and make, make them struggle and create friction and. Create situations where patience is required and where disappointment is just a natural part of of life. It's up to us to create, to create that environment. Because if we don't, they'll grow up thinking everything that we have. Everything that we do is entirely normal.

And everything that, you know, might be a little bit less is they can deal with, you know, because they've never had to. And, and that was a big learning process for me to really say. Okay. I, I've experienced something else. You know, I grew into this world here. When I moved to the US and, you know, began my, my career and everything, I, I, I earned a lot of the things that we have.

And I was lucky at times. And, but I know how it was before, before I had all of this, before we had cell phones, before we had Amazon, before we had Netflix. I remember that. My kids don't, you know, so we have to build that into their lives and so. I challenge you, you know, for this week and for us too. You know, pick one area in your life to add a little friction back in.

You know, maybe it's canceling a streaming service, maybe. It's deciding that, well, if you need something from Amazon, you know, pick a day, a delivery day you have, you know, Amazon offers it, that Amazon delivery day where you get all of the deliveries that you accumulate, you know, on a given day together.

So they don't have to, you know, come to the house every single day. We've done this, I think Monday or whatever is our delivery day. My wife typically handles that so. Stuff doesn't get delivered right away, even though Amazon would be able to deliver it overnight or the next day or in two days? No, it's once a week maybe, which is already crazy if you think about it.

But it's better than same day delivery, you know? Um, you know, maybe it's cooking. From scratch instead of ordering, you know, maybe it's, you know, telling your kids, no, there is no device, you know, between, unless it's between, you know, 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM or whatever. And maybe on days where you're in school, there is no screen time at all.

You know, because you miss that window. You're in school during that window. So try that out and, and let me know, you know, send me maybe a TM or a DM or tag me on Instagram or something and let me know. Um. What happened? How does it work? How does it work out for you, and what are your tips? What have you experienced?

What have you implemented? I'd really like to hear from you, and I'm gonna leave a link to that episode from Dr. Becky in the description there as well. It's a super interesting eye-opening episode that I completely agree with, and it's a, an incredible reminder of how, of what we can do as parents. To shape the future of our kids and to make sure they, they grow up as resilient as possible, and then also learn what we can apply to our own lives.

You know, I, I, I have still room to grow. There is much, a lot of opportunity for me to become even more resilient. And so I'm gonna apply some of those principles to myself, but I'd like to hear from you, and if you're watching this on the platform or listening to this on the platform, supporting comments, you know, let, leave me a comment.

Shoot me an email. Take me somewhere on social. I'd love to hear from you and uh, when I wrap it up, hope I'll hear you in the next episode.