RAISING RESILIENT KIDS
“AWe cannot expect our kids to be anything that we are not. Our children learn from what’s around them
t the end of the day, we are all just very human parents.” That message lies at the heart of Naomi Holdt’s book, Bounce: How to Raise Resilient Kids and Teens, an easy-to-read, effective guide that can make an immediate difference to your parenting approach and your relationship with your children.
A former teacher and now psychologist, she believes that many of the mental health problems being experienced by the children and teenagers that she works with come down to lacking a sense of belonging.
“No matter how technologically advanced our world becomes, our biological human needs will not change,” says the Pietermaritzburg-based author.
“We are wired, as human beings, for two things: belonging and protection and authenticity … belonging is so important that what we often do, even us as adults, is we give up being our authentic selves just to belong.
“If you think about our kids and our teens, how many of them will try and be someone else just to fit in? But in doing that, in turning our backs on a human need, we give up who we are, because we fear being rejected [and] no-one wants to be rejected.
“The feeling of not being good enough results in depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts and more … [and] the overriding emotion that we feel when we feel we don’t fit in is shame – a person feels flawed and unworthy of being loved or belonging anywhere.
“Shame is a completely crippling space to be in. It’s so cutting and so many of our kids and our teens are experiencing this, but as soon as someone says ‘me too’ [that they feel the same way] that sense of shame begins to evaporate.
“We need to create safe spaces in our homes and our classrooms where our kids and teens can have all their needs met, where they can tell their stories of pain without the fear of judgement.”
In Bounce she explores why children are increasingly testing boundaries, indulging in ‘impossible behaviours’, and are much more easily distracted and impulsive. They also have lower tolerance levels, increased sensitivity.
Holdt stresses in her book that parents cannot meet the needs of their children and build their resilience from being knocked down by school issues, learning difficulties, peer pressure, social media, exclusion, bullying, grief and divorce, if their parents are struggling.
“We cannot expect our kids to be anything that we are not. Our children learn from what’s around them. They learn from us and we are their ‘life textbooks’, their role models,” she says in the book.
It’s why she encourages parents to practice self-care and to do something, every day of the week, that feeds their soul.
“When it comes to parenting, we tend to make sure everyone else is okay and have all their needs met long before we consider ourselves,” Holdt explains. “Being my best self enables me to be the best parent I can be for my kids.
“As a parent you have to reframe yourself as a fuel tank that your family is filling up from all the time. If you aren’t filling yourself up, not only will you not be tuned into them, but you’re likely
to become easily disregulated and cause greater disconnection in your relationships.”
Holdt also stresses the importance of parents having proper sleep as, without it, a person is more inclined to be crabby, edgy, less patient and moody and this, in turn, can impact on how they are able to deal with the people in their lives.
Elsewhere in Bounce, she advocates for parents to stop putting themselves and others down as children are like sponges and absorb these negative comments.
“We need to aim to be who we want our children to be and treat ourselves with the kindness and compassion that we want them to treat themselves with,” Holdt says, adding that it is important for parents to find time in their busy lives to reconnect as partners, as this
helps provide stability for children.
“It’s important for your children to see that you are connecting as a couple, that you actually enjoy being in each other’s company and can even have fun together.”
Another key area in the book deals with the importance of setting consistent boundaries for children. Kids, she explains, feel safe within boundaries that don’t move or change on a daily basis.
“If you set a boundary today and tomorrow it shifts, or it shifts when you are too tired to stick to that boundary, the changes cause your child to feel insecure … they don’t feel safe enough to develop their self-esteem,” Holdt says.
Another important take-away from Bounce is that children need to know that they can express strong emotions and that their parents won’t go off the deep end when they do have a meltdown; and that a child will not listen to their parents until they feel heard and understood.
“Too often as adults we think our role is to give advice. It’s not. We need to learn to be quiet and listen because only then can children trust us enough to listen back and allow us to guide them,” she says, adding that parents need to put down their phones, tablets and computers and fully engage with their children through play or conversation.
“The greatest gift we can give our children isn’t anything that we can buy them. It’s the gift of our presence,” Holdt explains.
The final section of the book is a touch more serious and provides a sobering reminder of how difficult the modern world is.
Holdt asked the publishers if they should be included and they fully supported the need of the topics of anxiety and depression and the impact of grief and divorce on children should be added to
Bounce.
As for seeing her word in print, following the publication of
Bounce by Pan Macmillan, she says it still a bit of a ‘pinch me’ moment.
Holdt was contacted by the publishing house after a post she did on why people are feeling so exhausted went viral in November last year. A year later her book is available to buy in bookshops and online.
“People ask what this has been like and the answer is ‘so surreal’,” Holdt says. “I feel like it hasn’t really sunk in yet ... I haven’t quite grasped that this is a book that is on sale. It’s real but it’s not real.”
As a busy mom of two children and a working psychologist, she wrote the book in the early morning, after hours and at weekends.
It helped, she explains, that Bounce had an existing framework thanks to the many talks she has done about how parents can develop resilience in young children and teenagers.
She then added in life experiences and the lessons she has learned from her children and those she sees professionally. The result is a friendly discussion on parenting, rather than an academic work. In fact, Holdt encourages parents to make notes in the book and not to treat her words as some kind of sacred text.
She remains very grateful to the team at Pan Macmillan who kept her on track with deadlines and were, she says, true collaborators in the production of Bounce.
Asked how she felt seeing her book in print for the first time, Holdt says it was an emotional experience.
“I got the book earlier than expected as I happened to be at a talk in Joburg and they wanted it to be there,” she says. “I was all by myself and I remember opening it [the box] and just being almost tearful and wishing that the people I wanted to be with were there. It was so overwhelming.”
Her husband and children have, however, been super supportive of her writing and her ‘biggest cheerleaders’ on the journey. That said, the younger members of her family are very happy she’s finished writing Bounce because she now has more time to play with them – something she’s very happy to do. • Bounce: How to Raise Resilient Kids and Teens is available at all good book stores and online retailers.