With everything that the year 2020 is throwing at us, the world can seem like a giant experiment in ambiguity. Many families are wondering: "Whatever happened to normal? Will it ever come back?" Other families are taking things in stride, finding their silver linings, and blazing happy new trails for their lives.
What is that difference? What makes some people respond to ambiguity with agility, and others seem frozen, longing for their old normal to come back? It is the degree to which we are capable of coping with the unexpected: Resilience. It's a skill learned through experience. It is a crucial skill needed to pursue happiness in times of change.
In my last corporate job, two years ago, I worked with my leadership team on management skills in times of VUCA. VUCA then stood for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in the business place. It's safe to say that the year 2020 has been dousing our personal lives in VUCA: we live in crazy times of constant, unpredictable change. For continued success, VUCA demands that we avoid traditional, outdated approaches and develop more agile structures of organization and process, in work and also in our personal life.
My 8-year-old boy is the master of asking big questions that start with "What if...". Yesterday he piped up from the back seat again, "What if the corona never goes away, and nobody can never ever go trick-or-treating again?" Right? That is the big question of this month!
This year, some parents might be tempted to promise a "really good" Halloween, and then spend some extra money and planning to keep their word. It's natural; our cultural approach is to protect our children from uncertainty, to make sure they are comfortable. Anxious people have an especially hard time helping their kids tolerate uncertainty, simply because they have difficulty tolerating it themselves.
However, today a parent's job is to prepare our children for a life full of uncertainty. So, let's use this extraordinary time to teach them how to handle uncertainty and how to problem-solve.
With this, I want to inspire you to view the holiday traditions in 2020 as a challenge posed by times of VUCA. Do not attempt to create normalcy. Instead, this year, guide the kids towards some new ideas. To lower the anxiety over Halloween in 2020, use creativity and good vibes to fantasize about ways to have fun. Explore how to craft decorations, what to cook, and how to design fun costumes. As the day draws closer, we will know whether we might be able to have a masked parade outside, or if we need to have a family party in lockdown. Right now, that is uncertain. So we need to remain agile. As we chat about the craziest ideas and scenarios, we can cheer each other on and engage in a fun brainstorming session. And that activity is a real-life skill; the kids are learning how to use brainstorming to innovate and prepare themselves with a plan B and maybe even a plan C.
Raising resilient kids means allowing them to experience setbacks and learn from mistakes. It also means allowing them to assess the degree of uncertainty in their lives and teach them specific skills to address it.
The linguist in me took to the Thesaurus to gain perspective:
Normal: habitual; routine; regular
Ambiguity: uncertainty; obscurity
Resilience: rolling with punches; quick to recover
Agility: nimbleness; deftness; dexterity
About the author:
Born and raised in Europe, Insa is a world-schooling mom of three, a polyglot nomad, and a life & career coach. After decades of working for global corporations, she now explores the surprising revelations of a life adrift. She blogs on Kids on Walkabout.