There is a saying, that we can’t teach our kids what we don’t know ourselves. We would add, we can’t teach what we don’t practice ourselves. So, let’s start with understanding the ways in which parents’ ability to cope with the stresses of everyday life can create a positive and supportive environment for their children.

Resilience is the process of managing stress in positive ways and functioning well even when faced with challenges. Parents who show the ability to cope with the stresses of everyday life, as well as parenting stresses that come up, have resilience.

Some stressors parents face can be managed relatively easily so that the problems get resolved. But at times, stressors can be overwhelming. For this reason, we don’t measure resilience by a parent’s ability to fix problems. Rather, parents are resilient when they realize their own inner resources and can ask for help when needed. All parents have inner strengths and resources that can serve as a foundation for building resilience for themselves and their children.