How to build resilient children | Teresse Lewis | TEDxTemecula

good afternoon everyone i have a piece of news for you yada made a mistake and let me on the stage i am so excited to be here and we're going to have a good conversation i want to know who in here is a bookworm raise your hand oh a lot of oh this is great of course you guys are book rooms you don't come to a ted talk right if you don't like words i'm a bookworm too i love books i love to read i love to learn i love the experience of taking in something that i didn't create i love books so much that i have what i like to call teresa's times best seller list you know like the new york y'all get it so on the top of that list is a book that's one of my favorite and it's it's critical to our conversation today the book is called the other westmore the other westmore is a true griffin almost unbelievable story about two boys both of them named wes moore both boys grew up in similar baltimore neighborhoods they both grew up impoverished they both grew up without fathers in their home and they both had run-ins with the police several times throughout their adolescence so because the boys had such similar childhoods then it begs this question which is what is the difference between two kids and the outcomes that they have because one of the westmore's went on to be a white house fellow a rhodes scholar a decorated veteran and an influential business leader in our country the other westmore he ended up being a convicted murderer and he's spending the rest of his life in prison until the day he dies what was the difference between those two boys and most importantly what we're here to talk about today what i'm here to chat with you about a little bit is what is the difference between any two children who experience adverse circumstances and experiences but they go on to have drastically different outcomes as adults the answer to this question is both widely known and is also simultaneously our best kept secret the answer to this question if we take it with the weight in which it's given will absolutely revolutionize childhood and probably even humanity the quest to answer this question took me on a personal 15-year journey of what's called narrative research i have worked with literally thousands of youth and their families analyzing stories and outcomes and i've been in different positions i've worked as a school social worker in an educational setting i've worked in communities as an executive director for a non-profit i've worked as a licensed therapist in residential treatment all across the country and probably my proudest role as i've worked and it is work as a mommy of four of my own kids why does that matter because in all of those roles the answer to that question did not change it didn't matter what role i was functioning in the answer came down to this one simple thing now does anyone besides my poor family who's had to hear this talk probably 10 times already does anyone in here know the answer a little louder oh influence influence influential people what else i heard something else the family dynamics family dynamic what else resilience somebody stole my answer the answer is resilience now family dynamics and all of those things we're going to talk about that in a second all of those things impact the outcomes of children we know this but resilience is through the research through my own research the number one skill the characteristic that we want children to have why the american psychological association defines resilience because we have to understand what we're talking about right they define resilience as the ability to overcome adversity trauma tragedy threats and even significant sources of stress so when we hear that definition i hope that it pops into your mind that we all need to be and we've all had to be resilient right because who in here can say i have not experienced any type of adversity trauma tragedy no threats or significant source of stress there's not one person in here that can say that so if that is the case if we understand that adversity is guaranteed and we understand that it is guaranteed that we need resilience then why is it that we don't teach resilience to our kids i am here to propose something that seems maybe a little radical but not really that we teach kids resilience from the beginning what we do as a society is we teach kids resilience as a response to something negative that has happened that is when we start the conversation about being resilient and they can get through it and all of those wonderful things what i'm saying is that we as the adults in the lives of kids we need to teach them resilience as fervently as we teach math science sports art whatever it is maybe not math okay of course a youth or we teach you this art but whatever it is that you feel passionately about that you want kids to have we need to teach resilience with that much fervor why because they are giving we're giving kids what they need and preparing them for the part of life that we know is inevitable right now you guys mentioned families and i'm glad that you threw that out there because i want to tell you that in my almost two decades of research i've wanted to know the answer okay kids need resilience how do we do that how do you do that how do i build resilience in a child the research has pointed to again one solid answer not 10 although i could name 10 things that impact kids one solid answer and that answer is through relationship not surprisingly a study that was done by the international a study that was published in the international journal for child and youth outcomes studied 445 kids who were not exposed to adverse childhood experiences okay they studied those kids and the outcomes that they had as adults over a 15 to 20 year span and what this study found is that those kids and their life outcomes were greatly predicted by the relationships that they had and that those relationships impacted kids in a greater way than any other variable so what's the common everyday interpretation of that it didn't matter how smart they were how much money their parents had what the background was all of those things do definitely have an impact absolutely but the thing that was most impactful the thing that makes the difference between the two westmore's if you will is the quality of relationships that those children have and whether those relationships builds resilience in them now the other piece of this is who's going to do it we have this ambiguous term out there build relationships and kids whose responsibility is it i'm going to let you guys in on a little secret in my work there is no place where i have more profoundly seen this idea of building resilience in kids through relationships more profoundly played out than actually in the educational setting why well our schools our school system as an institution they are the only it's the only organization institution that has access to kids on a regular continual basis and some of you might say well maybe not so much recently right but then we're getting back there the educational institution is the only system that can say we will impact we will come in contact with large numbers of students and we can impact them train them and teach them and give them something that will impact their lives for years to come if someone were to ask you if there's someone influential in your life or somewhere where you're greatly impacted or maybe even negatively impacted i can almost guarantee you that about 90 percent of you all will say something about school or someone in your school now i don't disagree for those of you who are thinking it is my job as a parent it is our job as a family to build resilience in our kids i agree 150 but i can tell you after working for years with families right here in our own backyard the families are toxically stressed right now they are overworked under resourced financially and mentally they are disconnected and families are telling me that they feel ill equipped to meet the very basic social and emotional needs of their students and there's no judgment with that it's just the reality of where some families are so instead of us leaving it to the system to build the resilience why don't we collaborate why don't we implement resilience building in the school setting and connect all the systems together because in the end the impact will outweigh any work that needs to be done now if you're not an educator in here i don't want you to think that this message does not apply to you if you are a parent if you are in if you are an uncle a community leader an organizational leader an extended friend by blood or does it matter if you have access to a child no matter for how long then you have the greatest opportunity to make a difference in their lives by being a caring adult whether you cared for a day or in a moment or whether you are there for them to care for a lifetime having that impact and having that voice and being a caring adult for kids not only builds resilience in them but it develops what we call a strong inner voice just before i came out here my inner voice like to reach you got this right you can do this you do this all the time kids have an inner voice too but what we don't realize is that their inner voice is not developed by them it's developed by the people who are around them so the messaging that they receive is the message that they repeat to themselves they don't come tell you you tell me this and i just said it to myself in this situation nope we don't get that opportunity to hear that and to know that but i'm telling you as a professional that take place over and over and over in their head mrs lewis said i can do x y and z mrs lewis said focus on what i can control i want you to take a moment and imagine a child hearing your voice and your message in their head and how that might impact them when they are facing the situation that you are not able to stand by their side and help them to overcome what would our world look like imagine with me if our organizations our homes our schools where community build resilience building centers where kids could go and get filled up when they need to almost like a gas station they're everywhere right kids can go and feel safe and get the resilience in the building that they need because the messaging was right because they had one person or one relationship now you might be wondering what is the message for the kids because there are many messages that we can give kids so i'm going to give you four essential critical messages that i've given probably some of your kids in here if you recognize me hey that i give kids that i give my own kids and that the research says we need to give kids the first one is adversity is not personal kids are egocentric and what that means is everything that happens they take it personal when they think that it's something that they did that caused it so they need an adult to tell them no struggling is a part of life it is not something that you did and it is not because of the quality of the person in which who who you are they need us to change that message for them the second thing and you all might be surprised by this one forgiveness we need to teach kids forgiveness now i can do a totally separate talk on forgiveness but i won't well maybe i will who knows i don't know but forgiveness is huge and i don't mean forgiveness as then we're teaching kids to be doormats and allow people to run over them absolutely not when i say forgiveness what i'm talking about is cutting the core of the burden of anger resentment hatred fear and self-loathing from our kids so that when it's time for them to be resilient they don't have that knapsack hanging on their back i've worked with those kids it is hard to climb that mountain when you have stuff that you're carrying unnecessarily but they don't know that it's our job to give them that message the third one is i see you and i don't just see you physically but i see your characteristics i see that you matter i see what you love i see how you are let kids know that you see them when we see when you see them and they know you see them they are more likely to overcome adversity because they know you care and the fourth and last one is that it is okay to need other people how many of you have ever heard somebody say you're one of the strongest people i know well let me tell you that can feel like a backhanded compliment sometimes why because what that really means is i've seen you go through all this stuff and you don't seem to need people because that's how we as a society defines strength not needing people and as a literal antithesis of what we need to do to be resilient we need to be okay with needing people so we send that message to our kids early before they meet people and here's where i want to end research aside stats aside 15 20 years all that stuff aside i can tell you because what i didn't share in the beginning is that i could have been one of the other westmore's i was exposed to violence and abuse at a very young age that no child should have to ever see or experience i could have easily ended up being one of the kids who didn't beat the odds and quite honestly that's where i was meant to be based on my childhood experience but i had many adults that came along the way but one foundational relationship and experience and i'm not gonna cry that caused me to go from mr resilience and that was my sister who at the age the ripe old age of 18 she adopted an eight-year-old girl because she decided that our story was going to end differently who at the age of 18 got a full-time job at an apartment and took a child in and said we are going to figure it out she told me to forgive my mother she taught me it was okay to need other people she saw me she did everything right even when she didn't have research and fancy letters back then she is now behind her name she was caring she was present she was trustworthy and that's what i needed and what i'm telling you all today the clarion call is that all kids need you just like they i needed her they need you so please be the one that makes the difference for kids because the wes morse and the teresa lewis's fill in the blanks of the world well thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 35,482

Keywords: Childhood, Children, Education, English, Parenting, Students, TEDxTalks, Youth

Id: G_3cvSZiFVs

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 02 2021