Focus on the Family Equipping Parents Podcast

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John Fuller: Our kids need to see us persevering, showing some grit in life. I’m John Fuller along with Dr. Danny Huerta. Danny, how did you demonstrate, model, and show your children resilience and perseverance? Do you have any stories that come to mind?

Danny Huerta: We started early. We would say, "Let's try it again. Let's just try it again." And that's part of perseverance. It's that mindset that you can try things again. There’s a rewind button and there’s an opportunity to get right back up and try it again. So it was with building things, it was with hiking, activities that we did.

I remember one of our first hikes with our kids. They were really young. We started camping pretty early on in their lives. And that's perseverance in itself. With young kids, they feel like it's super long and it's cold at night and there are a lot of built-in opportunities to persevere when you go camping. There was this one hike that was about a mile long. It was Hanging Lake, a beautiful area. They were pretty young and about halfway through, my son said, "I don’t want to go anymore. I’m done. When is this over, Dad? It’s too long."

And I said, "No, we set out to do this hike." And I knew it wasn't that long and I knew it was a moment for him that he was just bored, but he needed to expand it a bit, just his experience as a young boy. And I said, "Hey, at the end, it’s going to be so satisfying. You're going to see how we're going to take some great pictures. When we get back, we're going to be going to a pizza place and having a great time of celebration that we made it from beginning to end on the goal that we set today."

And he said, "Dad." I said, "Well, let’s just rest here for a moment, let’s reset, and then we’ll get there. We’ll just take one step at a time and let me know where rest makes sense for you and let's figure it out." So then we kept going and we got to the top and he absolutely loved it. And then that energized him on the way down.

And then at the pizza place, the restaurant, we reflected on it. "Man, it felt like we just all wanted to give up there. It was hard, we pushed through it. Man, let’s celebrate that. I wonder other places in life where that will be the case." And so we were able to reset to that memory as they got older and several other places in their lives. We just had to pause for a moment and say, "Boy, it’s tempting to just give up right now on whatever that is, whether it's a sport or something else. Let's see what’s there. Let’s take the adventure. There’s no perfection needed here. You’re just growing, so why not? Let's just keep trying."

John Fuller: That’s great. And we’re going to move now to a portion of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly in which Jim was talking to Kathy Cook, Dr. Kathy Cook. She is a great communicator, has such a heart for families and kids, and she shared about this topic of perseverance and resilience.

Jim Daly: Does temperament even play a role in that? Do we create the worried child or is that something that's part nature, part nurture?

Kathy Cook: I would say both. There is a DNA component to anxiety and stress and that bounce-back ability certainly. But I want parents and grandparents and caregivers to own what is ours to own. And have we created children who are so fearful that they won’t grow? And that would be sad. Resiliency is necessary if we’re going to grow and mature and learn and succeed and develop into the people God wanted us to be when He chose in His love to make us us.

Jim Daly: You look at all the character of God. Resiliency has to be from Him. Just that ability to, Jesus, rise above the storm in front of you, right? "Hey guys, calm down, I got this." He seemed to say that a lot.

Kathy Cook: Jesus, Paul, Daniel, Esther, there’s just so many heroes of the faith, Moses, who didn’t give up and persevered because they believed in their purpose and they believed in the God of the Bible and the truth that He was proclaiming over them.

Jim Daly: Let's hit for the parents, sometimes intentionality in parenting is tough, we’re busy, but the benefits of resiliency. Hit those.

Kathy Cook: Thank you. General success, general growth, freedom to risk, because if we don’t risk we don’t grow and that’s really important. Fewer mental health issues. There’s research that says that resilient children will be angry and stressed, they’ll feel pain, but they're not defined by that. Isn't that precious?

Jim Daly: It’s perfect. That’s exactly what you want. That’s what I hear as healthy.

Kathy Cook: Problem-solving would be another one to mention because if you're resilient you don't want to stay down in the valley. You want to try again to make the soccer team or to play the piano piece better. So you learn to strategize. You learn what got in the way that you could avoid to practice differently. And who doesn't want children who are independently able to problem solve? Not without a mom being supportive or a dad being available, but on our own to be able to get out of the mess we're in. Precious.

Jim Daly: And the reason I framed it that way is that there’s so many things that a parent has to be aware of to do. I would think building resiliency into your children should maybe take first place. Spiritual development obviously, but when you're looking at where do I as a parent become more intentional, I think this would be one certainly of the top three you should be intentional about.

Kathy Cook: Preach it. Yes, and I appreciate that so much. That's why I wrote a whole book on it because it starts as a choice. Like a child who learns to walk falls down, and we don't say, "Bad girl." We don't say, "Don't try again for five years until you'll be perfect." We know they're going to fall down. We take pictures and videos and brag to everybody that our children are growing up. So we expect them to have a little bit of trauma there.

So it starts as a choice to stand up. The more often you choose to be resilient, the likelier that it becomes an ability and then it’s a part of character. We don't think about being resilient; we are resilient. And that changes you when it’s a part of your spirit, a part of your heart.

Jim Daly: What is the key to resilience?

Kathy Cook: Parents. It really is that simple.

Jim Daly: How do we perform it well or not perform it well then?

Kathy Cook: Jim, first of all, I don't say that lightly. I love being here with you on Focus, and every parent and grandparent listening wants to be the very best that they can be. We need to be resilient. It starts with the parent not staying down in his valley.

Jim Daly: Modeling.

Kathy Cook: Absolutely modeling it and expecting it of yourself and risking and trying again and letting your children know that you're imperfect and you're growing and you're striving and you're going after the things that are for you and you're not walking toward the things that are unrealistic. Do we model responsibility? Do we model care and concern?

John Fuller: Well, Danny, we can talk about resilience here for a long time, but how about a difficult time maybe from your own life where you’ve just had to do a foot at a time, a step at a time, let's keep going?

Danny Huerta: Kathy does such a great job of just talking about this topic. You can tell it’s her passion. One of the words that we used early with our kids was "oopsie-daisy." And they learned that one. When they needed to try again, "oopsie-daisy." So I just want to throw that in. But there was a time, as you know, we’ve talked on the show, that I all of a sudden was thrust back into school. And this was the PsyD program to be a psychologist.

And there was a time where I told the kids, "Man, this is going to be a tough season for us. And what do you guys think? Can we do this as a family? It’s not just for me; this is us as a family." There are going to be some sacrifices here and my kids, it was so awesome to hear them say, "Dad, we have to do homework, we’ll do it with you." They came up with creative ideas as we as a family looked at adversity in front of us, at something that was going to be challenging for us. And they became a part of the problem-solving.

One of our mottos was, "There’s always a solution to everything, even death." Jesus provided that solution. So there’s always a solution, we’ve got to look for it. And in this case, they brought that right back to me and they said, "Dad, there’s always a solution to everything. We’re going to figure this out. We’re on your side, in your court. It’s not going to be perfect, but we can find some creative ways to spend time together, let’s do this."

And they were so encouraging. That's as a family. I encourage you to look at what is a challenge in front of you and begin to talk about how as a family do we conquer that together. And if you're in the midst of a challenge with your child and you’re needing to persevere through that, find a community of parents, of other parents around you that can pray for you, that can help you persevere through the challenges because it is absolutely worth it and there is repair waiting for you in that relationship.

John Fuller: Good advice. And I’m going to point you to Dr. Kathy Cook’s wonderful book called Resilient Kids: Raising Them to Embrace Life with Confidence. Danny’s illustration kind of reflected how you can cultivate that kind of a perspective and it’s so wonderful when that happens. It takes time and effort and intentionality and a presence of mind. Get this book to help you be ready for adversity and the opportunities to shine and just show up with resilience. The book is available to you for a donation of any amount to Focus on the Family today. We’ve got it, make a donation, we’ll send it to you, and the details are in the show notes.

And we haven’t talked about it lately, but we have a free age-and-stage e-newsletter. It’s a terrific resource for you to be able to sign up and with just a little bit of data, we’ll be able to send you customized content for your journey with each of your children. Let’s say you have a three, eight, and fifteen-year-old. Those are all three very different ages and you might remember what it was like to be parenting a three-year-old, but we’ll send you information anyway just to remind you because your fifteen-year-old is taking all the oxygen in the room.

And then the middle child, the poor middle child. So we’ll send information to you on a weekly basis. Danny, there’s an annual kind of thing that helps you look forward to the coming year.

Danny Huerta: What to expect, what to build, and how to grow. You get ten pages specific to each child's age. Grandparents can sign up for this age-and-stage experience as well, so keep that in mind, grandparents.

John Fuller: That's great. If you're involved in grandkids' lives, get signed up. This is a terrific resource. It's free. It's been years in the making. We want you to have it, so click the link in the notes to find out more. Next time we’re going to hear a great conversation with Kay Wyma about practicing thankfulness and mercy and kindness and how you can do that for your children and for those around you. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I’m John Fuller and thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Equipping Parents Podcast.

Jim Daly: Live your truth. A lot of people say that, don't they? But truth isn't something we decide. God has decided it for us, and it's our job as believers to share His truth with a world in need. I'll encourage you to do that through my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly. I visit with fascinating guests about important topics like gender confusion, cancel culture, and more, while helping you share God's love with others. Listen at refocuswithjimdaly.com.