Raising Resilient Children: How Sharing Family Challenges Can Help

The family is a unique structure that comprises parents and children, who are knitted together by love and blood. Shared experience is what continuously affirms the love and strengthens the bond. As we all know, it's normal for families to go through tough times, but not every parent believes It's okay to let their children know about the challenges faced by the family, although others felt it's good and would have a good impact on their kids, like brooding their empathy, encouraging open communication, and overall preparing them for real-life situations. In this article, I'll share my take on this subject matter.

Kids are a part of the family and an important part of it for that matter; most parents would even tell you that the major reason why they're working around the clock tirelessly is because of their wards, so such would have all that's needed to make life journey seamless for them; however, despite most parents efforts, it's understandable that unforseen challenges can erupt that'll put a dent in the family's finances or other important aspects of the family.

When such happens, there's no way we want to try to hide it from one kid; one way or another they'll notice, and not communicating with them can lead to them trying their own means to savage the situation so as not to be a burden to us parents. Now some of their actions might go overboard, and that's why I'm of the opinion that letting a child in on family difficulties isn't bad.

However, the age of the child will determine the amount of information we can let them know. For instance, children still below 5 years could only be told basis words such as being careful of how they handled money, and those below 10 can still be told about the family struggle, but language use should be within their capabilities to comprehend without scaring them, but instead let them know daddy can't buy you the materials needed for your school stuff for now, but we'll definitely work towards it before it's too late, so as to assure them.

Personally, I think kids from 11 to 15 can be let in on deeper conversations, letting them know details of what's going on in the family, be it financial, marital, and the like. It'll be annoying for a child to find out from outside that their parents are having issues that might lead to divorce, and yet they know nothing about it, so regardless of what might be going on, kids of that age can be let in on such conversations, although we can assure them that we as parents are working on how to settle out differences to bring about unity once.

But in the situation of kids from 16 upwards, I believe those ones can be treated as adults, as they've already experienced life to a certain stage and course they'll be taught in schools or experience since in the neighborhood would have given them a bit of understanding of life challenges, and we can't be sugarcoating things for them; we can also fill them in on challenges and let them brood their problem-solving skills using family challenges as a start.

Now, taking about the benefits of these acts, since kids are a part of the family, giving them insight into what's happening in the family helps strengthen family bonds, promote unity and cooperation, and it also prepares them for real-life challenges. Like I said earlier, most of what we're facing presently in the family is what they'll later experience, so letting then will give them experience on learning to cope with difficulty and improve their problem-solving skills; it also enhanced their empathy and understanding.

Although some can argue that letting kids in on such can lead to emotional burden and the like, like I said, the child's age will determine what we let them know and how in what style we'll talk to them. All we need to do to help them through tough times is be honest, choose the right time and place, and monitor their emotional well-being during such moments.

All photos are mine.