A secure and fulfilling childhood is one of the most important predictors of positive mental health in adulthood. Most parents aspire to provide a good life for their children, but a good life is not the same as an easy one where parents solve all the problems. A good life also means facing challenges, distress, and other emotional ups and downs with the confidence that there are adults who will let you make your mistakes but will also protect you.
Most parents want their children to be strong, resilient, and confident. One important aspect of developing these traits is making children antifragile. Antifragility was popularised by the mathematician and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who defines antifragility as a property of a system that becomes stronger and better in response to stress. Nature and evolution reward organisms that have anti-fragility. Our immune system and muscles are antifragile. Exposure to germs makes us resistant to disease in the future, and working out makes our muscles stronger. This principle applies to all living beings – even trees.
The University of Arizona runs an ambitious project called Biosphere. It’s a giant terrarium created to help the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other space agencies study how life can potentially be supported in outer space and on other planets. The artificial ecosystem has trees, savannahs, and other simulated biomes. Scientists tracking this project observed a very interesting phenomenon with the trees. The trees grew faster in the Biosphere compared to the wild, but none of them survived to maturity. They would collapse before reaching their full height. This baffled the scientists because the trees had light, soil, water, and all the other things they needed to flourish.
After conducting research, the scientists realised that one crucial element was missing from the trees’ artificial environment: stress created by wind. In nature, the wind constantly causes trees to sway. And even though this is stressful for the tree, to be bent and pushed, it is crucial for making them strong. In response to this stress, the trees adapt by growing what is called stress wood.
Just like trees, children also need to develop some emotional stress wood in their formative years. This concept is vital for parents and educators to bear in mind when mentoring children.
Mild adversity is crucial for the emotional development of children. Parents and educators need to distinguish between traumatic, harmful stress and mild adversity. Extreme stress can lead to trauma and must be avoided, but mild adversity is essential. Even though it’s counterintuitive for a parent or educator to see children suffer, it is beneficial for children to deal with some adversity early in life because emotions like disappointment, failure, hurt, and rejection are an inevitable part of the journey of life.
Overcoming difficulty is an essential part of the passage from childhood to adulthood. This is why the excessive focus on safety and efforts by parents to minimise risk, however well-intentioned, actually do great emotional harm to young people. It leaves children ill-prepared to deal with the emotional challenges that are an inevitable part of dealing with the real world.
How can parents and educators do this in a safe manner?
Because they are deprived of the opportunity to make mistakes, kids do not learn how to properly evaluate risks, gain independence, and navigate interpersonal conflicts without relying on a third-party authority figure, like a parent (or, later in life, a university official). Parents should give their children more opportunities to exercise their independence, even starting at an early age. This can be as simple as allowing them to enjoy more free and unsupervised play. When they notice conflicts arising among children during play, they should resist the temptation to intervene or make them “play fair.”
Parents should also be wise to periodically ask their independent children what new challenges they want to take on. Even small milestones like walking to school or friends’ houses on their own can be remarkably self-affirming for kids. This also teaches them that “stranger danger” is an overhyped myth and that, if trouble arises, they should ask strangers for help.
We want to make our kids feel safe and protected, but sometimes, we overplay our hand. We are dealing with a generation of children who are sensitive and risk-averse—children who tend to seek adults to solve their problems and protect them from discomfort. As educators and parents, we must stop this. Kids are not as fragile as we think.
Praneet Mungali is Trustee and Secretary of the Sanskriti Group of Schools, Pune. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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