Andrew D. Wittman - Seven Secrets of Resilience for Parents: Navigating the Stress of Parenthood

Copyright 2018 by Andrew D. Wittman, Ph.D.

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Published by: Get Warrior Tough Media, Greer, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906194

Publishers Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Names: Wittman, Andrew D.

Title: Seven secrets of resilience for parents : navigating the stress of parenthood / by Andrew D. Wittman, Ph.D.

Description: First Edition. | Greer, SC : Get Warrior Tough Media, [2018]

Identifiers: ISBN 9781732356801 (paperback) | ISBN 9781732356818 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Parenting--Psychological aspects. | Parent and child. | Child rearing--Psychological aspects. | Resilience.

Classification: LCC HQ755.8 .W58 2018 (print) | LCC HQ755.8 (ebook) | DDC 649.1--dc23

INTRODUCTION Leaving a Legacy

Can You Give Anyone Anything You Dont Have?

I have spent large portions of time on five of this planets six inhabited continents. Regardless of ethnicity, culture, economic status, political or religious ideology, I have observed something common to all humans parents want their children to have a better life than they have. Ive never met a parent who wouldnt do anything for their kids. My wife, Kim, and I certainly feel this way. But just being willing to do anything for your child isnt enough, otherwise every child would grow up and enjoy a happy, successful, and fulfilled life. A balanced life. A life filled with harmonious relationships, not ones frayed by hurtful wrongdoings, drama, and embitterment. A life filled with thriving abundance, not one filled with struggle. The enjoyment of a purposeful and fulfilling career they love, not grinding out a job they hate.

It is not enough to love your children. Not enough to want the best for them. Theres one and only one thing that is enough. My wife and I have deployed this one essential element in raising our own three happy, successful, and fulfilled children. And continue doing so, even now that they are almost adults. This one thing is resilience.

One definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. I call it mental toughness and define it as the ability to take control of your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and actions proactively, especially under pressure. Resilience is the skill to handle anything life throws your way. It is a mindset that says, Im the problem, and Im the solution. If I have a problem, its me, but the good news is, Im also the solution. Resilience says, I cannot fail, as long as I learn and grow. Resilience operates from a foundation of love, not fear. Resilience turns negative stress into rocket fuel. Resilience taps into internal emotional drivers that enable a person to push past the obstacles, difficulties, losses, and pain to complete any worthy accomplishment.

Even though I am the one writing this book, make no mistake, my wife is the main driver in the discovery, deployment, and installment of mental toughness in our home. When most folks first meet us, they think Im the driver because of my background: Marine infantry combat veteran, police officer, federal agent, private military contractor, and leadership and mental toughness coach. Kim is by far the more resilient and more mentally tough partner of our thirty-year marriage. She is the citadel, the fortress, and the rock that unwaveringly demonstrated and instilled that resilience in our kids while I was gone for large portions of time, deployed somewhere on those five inhabited continents.

I knew Kimmi was tough, but I had no idea how tough until she became pregnant with our first child. She, being one of those parents who would do anything for her kids, began a massive research project, which continues to this day. She discovered the concept of drug-free, natural childbirth and had us enroll in breathing classes. (You know the kind where we both sit on the floor with pillows and count Ha Ha Hes.) When that day in 1997 came, she birthed our firstborn child, Drew, with nothing but mental toughness and a bucket full of ice chips. The medical staff was in disbelief, as offers of epidurals were summarily dismissed. And she did the same for our other two, Jack in 2000 and Michaela in 2003.

It was back in the delivery room that I learned moms are much more resilient and mentally tougher than dads. And that you dont have to join an elite military unit to be resilient and mentally tough. You dont have to be in combat or a fire-fight or almost get killed in a war. If youre a parent, you have it; the trick is to learn how to tap into it and deploy it.

Accessing resilience, or mental toughness, is a skill, and it can be learned, practiced, applied, and mastered the same as any physical skill: tying your shoes, brushing your teeth, or driving a car. Many people I have interacted with over the course of my life have seemed to believe that resilience and mental toughness are almost mystical. Not tangible. Not teachable. Not learnable. I assure you, they are tangible, teachable, and learnable for us parents and for our children. We must, however, answer a question first.

Can you give anyone anything you dont have?

If you didnt have a hundred dollars, could you give anyone a hundred dollars? If you didnt have a cup of coffee, could you give anyone a cup of coffee?

It All Starts with Self-Esteem

There are numerous studies with varying statistics in the realm of self-esteem, self-worth, self-regard, and self-confidence, but to make it simple: approximately eighty-five percent of two-year olds have a healthy self-esteem, self-worth, self-regard, and confidence level. They dont know the planet isnt about them. They want what they want, and they want it NOW! We call them the Terrible Twos, and they have fantastic self-esteem until we drive it out of them.

In her audiobook, 12 Secrets to High Self-Esteem , Linda Larson says that by age fifteen, the number of those with healthy self-esteem drops all the way down to five percent. That means ninety-five out of one hundred teenagers need help. They dont believe they deserve to have a good life, and with what we know about how the brain works (more on that later), that belief becomes a downward spiral.

Which brings us to these numbers: from about age twenty-four until the grave, only thirty percent of adults have a healthy self-esteem, self-worth, or self-regard. That means seven out of every ten adults need help.

Research from Purdue University shows that the number one fear of all human beings is ostracism or rejection. Cognitive neuroscience has used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a tool used to measure brain activity by monitoring changes in cerebral blood flow and neural activation, to show that rejection is registered by the brain in the same way as physical pain. When you and your first crush in high school broke up and it hurt, it was as if it physically hurt.