Resilience: The ability to adapt to ever-changing conditions and maintain a sense of wholeness and well being. 
Isn’t that what most parents want for their children? To raise resilient children, confident in who they are and able to courageously make good choices in response to life’s demands? Imagine a stretchy, rubber frog you can get in most toy stores. Picture yourself pulling the legs one by one as far as you can stretch them, and then letting them go, allowing the frog to bounce back to its original shape. Resilience.
The Navy environment puts unique stresses on children: the need to adapt to frequent moves, new schools, make new friends, to cope with a parent’s deployment. It’s critical for our children to be resilient in response to these demands. How can parents instill resilience? 
Unfortunately children don’t come with a set of instructions when they’re born. Parenting is often a trial and error process that may or may not develop the results you want. Most parents want what’s best for their children, but raising self-confident, responsible and courageous children takes both an awareness of parenting skills that foster these attributes and an ability to put them into practice. 
What are some of these positive parenting skills?  Here are several tried and true guidelines: 
• Understand your child; know about normal childhood development and take the time to appreciate the unique nature of your child;
• Expect good behavior from your child – appreciate the power of positive expectations and become an expert at catching your child ‘being good’;
• Spend time with your child - let them know you value them through the gift of your listening presence;
• Develop logical consequences for misbehavior that allows your child to learn to behave well;
• Foster a family climate of mutual respect by being a positive role model for your child.
April is Child Abuse and Prevention Month. A powerful way to prevent child abuse is to be the best parent you can be. Raising a resilient child takes work. In fact, it may be one of the most important and difficult jobs you’ll ever do. Good parenting takes a commitment of love and a commitment of learning.  Loving parents are open to learning and practicing skills that foster courage and resilience in their children. The Fleet and Family Support Center offers parenting classes to help parents fine-tune their skills.  Call 1-866-854-0638 to find out about our upcoming classes.