The lasting impressions I got from her engaging presentation about resilience were:
*SLEEP is immensely important. She says that we should protect and prioritize our children's (and surely our own) hours of sleep each night because of the lengthy list of benefits of sleep wrapped into one pill would be a billion dollar drug with only beneficial side effects. I think so too!
*Family MEALS, at least 4 nights per week, powerfully results in significantly smarter kids with a better sense of well being, regardless of the pleasantness of the meals! Grandma was right!
*Meaningful friendships are important, and this is not too surprising. The surprise to me, is that it's best to just have ONE OR TWO CLOSE FRIENDS, rather than more. The reasoning made sense; we can get pulled in too many directions, unintentionally hurt feelings when spending time with one friend, rather than another, and maintaining too many relationships expends lots of energy.
*A growth mindset, rather than a fixed one, refers to the "If I WORK HARD enough, I can do anything!" way of thinking, resulting in much more SUCCESSFUL children and adults, than those who rely on how they were born / their "talents" / their genetics. She included various comparisons of how each mindset would act/feel in various situations, such as getting a disappointing grade, striking out, asking for help from a teacher, etc.
Joan Borysenko is another fabulous resource for RESILIENCE; here is a post I wrote after taking a class from her which provides methods of increasing our resilience.
Lisa also stressed the importance of children spending time with adults, and this matches advice I have been trying to follow from Amy McCready of Positive Parenting Solutions. At my house, we call it "Mommy and Me Time". Check out my post about Positive Parenting Solutions.
Also, here's a post with some other great parenting books!
Look for more posts soon - I have so much fun and exciting stuff to share :)
