How to Raise Happy, Resilient Children Using Stoicism
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As a mom of three young children who’d just moved AND was going through a career change, Brittany Polat was searching for answers. So she typed ‘wisdom’ into Amazon in search of something to help her feel less overwhelmed.
She found William Irvine’s Guide to the Good Life, a book about Stoicism that discussed the need for a life philosophy.
“He brings out this idea that we’re kind of lost if we don’t have this framework to guide us,” Brittany says. “And that’s definitely what I felt in my life – the lack of that framework. And so I was very excited when I discovered that this is something Stoicism could offer.”
What Brittany learned transformed her life and led her to write Tranquility Parenting: A Guide to Staying Calm, Mindful, and Engaged.
“People have parenting philosophies, but they don’t have life philosophies,” Brittany says. “With Stoicism and with Tranquility Parenting, I’m trying to get people to reflect on their life philosophy first, and then everything that you do as a parent derives from that. So it’s not a separate parenting philosophy and life philosophy. It’s all one package.”
Brittany joined me on the Live Without Borders podcast to discuss the importance of having a life philosophy for yourself before you can hope to influence other people — especially kids. We also talked about how to cultivate more positive emotions in your life, be more mindful, fit reflection into your day, and more.
Raising resilient kids through Stoicism
For thousands of years, people have chosen Stoicism as their philosophy of life. As one of the leading voices in the Modern Stoic movement, Brittany wrote Tranquility Parenting as a guide to applying Stoic concepts to raising children, including the dichotomy of control.
Brittany:
“You do not control your child, and this was one of the hardest things for me to learn as a parent. We have this idea that it’s my child, right? So it seems like we should be able to, in some way, control what they do.
But once you break that down and think, OK, it’s not my brain controlling this body. This is a separate person…You do have responsibility for your child, but you do not have control.
So really making that distinction between, “OK, I can influence this child’s actions. I can influence who this person becomes. I do not actually control them. That helps us as parents to step back and, first of all, not feel guilty because guilt is a major emotion that many parents of the 21st century feel.”
Stoicism also helps parents deal with worries and anxieties by putting them into the context of the bigger picture of life, Brittany says.
“I remember when I was a new parent watching my toddler climbing on the playground equipment and feeling so anxious and worried, ‘Oh, my daughter doesn’t know what to do. This could end in tragedy.’ You know, I was on edge every moment.
So, Tranquility Parenting and Stoicism help us to step back and say, ‘OK, this is a natural part of life. This is about my child’s growth. In some ways, I’m going to have to step back and not control her. Let her explore the world.’”
Teaching virtue through action
Teaching virtue is another essential aspect of Stoic parenting, Brittany says. “We teach it not necessarily through sitting our child down and saying, ‘OK, here is a lesson on virtue, or ‘Here is a lesson on justice.’ We incorporate it into our life. We act as a role model for our child.”
Brittany likes to find teachable moments to help her kids connect a virtuous lesson with something they just did or what she would like them to do. After six years, she’s seeing that her children have internalized these lessons on cultivating character and reasoning things out.
“I remember when my daughter was four, she was in preschool. She came home one day upset because one of the other little girls in her class had said they didn’t like her haircut.
My daughter, she’s very sensitive. She was very upset. She was crying about it. So we talked through the idea that, OK, this little girl hasn’t learned how to be a good friend, but that doesn’t mean anything about my daughter.
It means that she hasn’t learned how to be a good friend. Maybe she will learn. Maybe her mother can help her. Maybe her teacher can help her. Maybe you can help her (I was talking to my daughter) by being a good friend, but it doesn’t impact you. It doesn’t mean that your haircut is ugly just because she said that.
That’s her opinion. Everybody else likes your haircut. You like your haircut. That’s the main thing.
So you can see how I’m not mentioning Stoicism at all. Certainly no philosophical principles for a child this young, but just talking through in everyday language how that really looks.”
Guiding principles over individual rules
Brittany says instructions are good in some situations, but we can’t give instructions for every situation.
“Life is just too complex. You’d have to follow behind your child and say, OK, in this situation…
Whereas principles, the child can learn and then relate them to any situation. So you might say they’re more flexible, they provide a kind of an operating system, but it’s just the core of it.
So if your child learns, for example, the principle that we are kind to other people, then he or she can apply that in every situation.
Whereas, saying ‘Don’t hit,’ then, OK, they might not hit, but they also might not share because you didn’t mention that one – and I promise you, the kids will find the loopholes.
If you leave any loopholes in your instructions, they will exploit them. So going back to principles means you’re looking more at the spirit rather than the letter of the law.”
Brittany’s goal is to help parents use Stoic principles to raise children who are emotionally healthy, resilient, and capable of living a good life. “It’s all about helping our children develop the tools they need to deal with life, which is full of suffering and pain, but also full of joy and beauty,” she says. “And to help them appreciate that and live a good life.”
Read more of Brittany’s work at Stoicism for Humans. She’s a steering committee member of Modern Stoicism, and co-founder, along with Eve Riches, of the nonprofit Stoicare, which “aims to share Stoicism with everyone who cares about people and the planet.”
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