Turning Out Well -But With a Struggle

The Successful Child: What Parents Can Do to Help Kids Turn Out Well
by Martha Sears, R. N., William Sears, M. D., Elizabeth Pantley

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Martha and I are particularly sensitive to kids who have a tough start yet fight to become adults who turn out well. Humans are resilient, and what we become is not determined forever by what happens in childhood. We both had less than ideal childhoods -an understatement. Martha's dad drowned when she was four, and her mother never recovered psychologically, leaving her daughter to be reared by not especially nurturing grandparents. My father took off when I was a few weeks old, forcing my mother to work long hours to support us. Even though I was raised in a home with nurturing grandparents, they also worked long hours, making me a “latchkey kid” before there even was such a term. Yet, fifty years later, what I remember most about my childhood is how my mother did the best she could under less than ideal circumstances. She surrounded me with healthy role models. She carefully screened teachers, scoutmasters, caregivers, and other persons of significance in my life. She made sure I was connected to healthy attachment figures. Despite our poverty and the stigma of being a fatherless child (there was only one other child in my grade-school and high-school classes who came from a “divorced” family), I grew up in a loving home. Having to work for my luxuries taught me a work ethic and a sense of responsibility.

Although many kids do bounce back from less than ideal childhoods and turn out well, they carry emotional baggage into adulthood and spend many years trying to unload it. How much easier it would be for kids to grow up well and then be free to spend their adult years improving rather than repairing their emotional lives.

Yet problems can be turned into opportunities. As a child of divorced parents, I was determined to stay married. Working summers on assembly lines in steel mills motivated me to finish college. Still, this tough childhood left me unconnected in some important ways - which took me fifty years to recognize and correct. But I believe that the good things my mother and grandparents did for me in childhood helped me overcome the challenges I faced as an adult.

Creating the Capacity for Resilience

How is it that some kids turn out well despite facing tough obstacles in childhood? Why are some kids more resilient than others? We suspect that early attachment parenting (which you will learn about in the next chapter) instills in a child a blueprint for future relationships. Children who learn early on what it is to be connected to others and to be able to trust them try to maintain or regain this connectedness as they grow into adulthood. They follow that early blueprint and bring the trust they learned in their first relationship into later relationships. That blueprint also shows them how to trust themselves, and this self-confidence sees a child through significant adversity. Children carry the connectedness they learned as infants through the rest of their lives. It becomes part of their overall well-being and makes them resilient.

Children who succeed despite multiple challenges usually have at least one important person in their lives to whom they feel connected. Ideally, this person is a parent, but it may be a teacher, a coach, a scoutmaster, or another person of significance. Connecting with others is very important. The kids that highschool counselors worry about most are those who don't seem to belong anywhere. They also worry about those who, in their hunger to belong, connect with the wrong people. Kids with a blueprint for strong attachment in infancy and early childhood not only know how to connect with others but are also better able to sort out good and bad influences.

We have noticed two other characteristics of resilient kids. One is that trusted caregivers frame the child in a positive light: “You can do it,” “You're smart and persistent,” “You can get into that college.” Children who hear statements such as “You're not good enough to make that team” or “You're too clumsy to be a quarterback” often live up to these negative expectations. Another characteristic of resilient kids is that some special person in the child's life discovered his “special something” - a talent, a unique ability - and helped him put that special something to work. Someone spots athletic ability in a marginal student and helps him become a star basketball player. A child may fail mathematics, yet excel in art, and someone helps him put that artistic ability to work in computer graphics - which also helps his math skills.

In an ideal world, every child would get everything needed for success in adulthood. In the real world, good parents try to do the best they can at each new stage that comes along. Children don't need perfect parents, just parents who are good enough. Get connected to your child and stay connected.

Copyright © 2002 by William Sears and Martha Sears

About the Author

Martha Sears is a registered nurse, childbirth educator, and breastfeeding consultant.

William Sears, M.D., received his pediatric training at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital and Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. He has practiced as a pediatrician for more than thirty years.

Elizabeth Pantley lives in Kirkland, Washington.