Grit for Days

It’s the end of the Month of the Military Child, and have I got a book for you!

Want to know the most cliched word used to describe military kids? Resilient. Without a doubt. I’m not sure when the military decided to rebrand their children as resilient rather than bratty, but it was decided a glow up. Until they ran that word into the ground.

Still, it’s true. These kids are resilient. They get knocked down, and they get up again (ain’t never gonna get them down). Or, more to the point: they get moved around and they unpack again (ain’t never gonna put roots down).

So what’s my deal with the word resilient? (And when am I going to tell you about the book?) There is no deal…or there’s not much of a deal It’s been overused. And sometimes I worry that we use it as an excuse to keep allowing damage to our kids, kind of like saying about a baby rolling off the bed onto the carpeted floor, “They’ll bounce.” Sure. They will probably be fine (ours were—don’t turn me in to CPS). But shouldn’t we be doing our best to keep them from rolling off in the first place?

This year during Month of the Military Child, I happened to be reading Grit by Angela Duckworth. One guess who told me to read this book. If you guessed the Man, you must know us! He was told to read it by another commander friend of ours, and naturally, they discussed it in relation to leading lots of young airmen (and older airmen) who are adjusting to what it means to be consistently asked to do hard things.

Surprisingly, I did not read it thinking about leading a squadron.

I read it as a mom. And as a teacher. And as a writer. And it was an excellent use of my time. Also, for the record, the second I finished reading it, I told Littles (who is, dramatically, no longer so little these days) that he needed to add it to his reading list.

Here’s why: when we talk about resilience, what we’re talking about is grit. The ability to keep going when the going is tough, to stick it out, to not quit. But when we slap a label on someone without really talking about what it means and how to help them carry the weight of a word like “resilience”, we set them up for failure.

Angela Duckworth doesn’t just talk about the importance of grit, but she also talks about how to develop it in ourselves and others and, more importantly, how to encourage its growth with wisdom.

Interestingly, at the same time I was wrapping up Duckworth’s book, I was also zipping through a significantly less instructive novel. Said novel contrasted two pairs of parents, one of whom demanded rigid discipline and obedience, the other of whom provided endless encouragement and zero boundaries. Neither set of parents provided the ideal, but the book did point out the importance of how the second set of parents didn’t shield their daughter from the hard things but they did provide her with a soft place to land. And those last four words are sticking with me.

I like that idea of a soft place to land, especially while talking about resilience and grit. We want to challenge our kids. We want to encourage them to strive for excellence. We should help them push themselves. But we also need to pay enough attention to who they are and what they’re going through that when they need a soft place to land, they can find it.

Here’s what I mean by that:

Tonight, my husband cooked dinner with our youngest daughter. I could hear them from where I was drafting this blog. They were goofing off and listening to music. She showed him that she can now start a load of laundry on her own. He tried to talk her into dancing with him. And then, at the drop of a hat, while they were waiting for the green beans, she was in tears, crying about not wanting to move, not wanting to leave her friends.

He had a few options in that moment. He could have distracted her and ignored the problem. He couldn’t told her that other people have it much worse. He could have offered to get out of the military so she’d never have to move again. He could’ve told her to suck it up and stop crying.

He did none of those things. He scooped her up in his arms and held her til she stopped crying and then said, “I’m so sorry you’re going to have to leave your friends. I know that’s really tough.” He gave her a big hug, before asking her, “Do you think you’ll be able to make new friends at the next base?” She nodded. “Do you know your mom and I are really going to miss our friends too when we move?” She nodded. When she stopped crying, they went out to watch the sunset together.

He didn’t belittle her feelings. Neither did he fix the problem. He listened. He showed empathy. And he gave her what hope he could. He gave her a safe place to land.

Our military kids are tough. They put up with a lot…a lot they never signed up for but were born into. As a military mom (and a homeschool mom and a regular, run of the mill human being), I found Duckworth’s book well worth the read. It’s helping me think about my own goal setting and how I can model purposeful choices for my kids. It’s helping me take a hard look at the standards I set and the choices I settle for. But it’s especially helping me think about how I can help my kids develop a resilience that bends and doesn’t break them, how I can encourage them forward in grittiness and growth.

Still… I really hope the Man and I can also—always—provide them with as soft a place to land as possible.