Resilience as Strength

My boy is almost two. He runs toward the stairs on the deck. I can’t tell if he is going to slow down. I run to catch him. He stops at the top step and looks over the cliff of 3 steps to the ground.

He has his own table and chair set. A little wooden table and chairs that look all adult, but tiny. And if you turn your back to him for 7 seconds, he’s standing on a chair reaching for, well, anything. 

I can’t stop him from ever falling down. He will get bumps and bruises. And if I somehow managed to never let him fall, well, then he’d be all kinds of messed up for other reasons. 

No kid is gonna watch “13 Reasons Why” and be surprised, this is the life they live.

It’s only the rest of us, with school deep in the rearview mirror who will be shocked, that it’s still the same, growing up is so difficult, you don’t fit in, you don’t know who to turn to, you think about ending it…

/via the LefsetzLetter

Some of the strongest things are strong because they are resilient, not because they are immovable. Like buildings designed to flex and wiggle in an earthquake.

We’re about to start watching “13 Reasons Why”. And I don’t think it is going to be easy. We have personally lost people we love to suicide. It is in our lives and in our work. 

I don’t know how I will ever be able to let my kid walk into a highschool. But rather than being broken by the fear, I hope I can give him the gift of resilliance.


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2 responses to “Resilience as Strength”

  1. Dennis Keefe Avatar

    Great post Thomas! Being a dad is tough, no matter how hard you try to do your best, you will still look back when they are grown and wonder if you did enough. My two oldest boys are 18 and 20, but I still have a 10, 11 and 12 year old to raise.

  2. thomasknoll Avatar

    From a friend who has been through this already (Thank God I have friends who have already gone through things I haven’t imagined yet)

    “… The real problems seem to be the ubiquity of access to codependent relationships that cell phones give. And that’s across text, social media, chat apps, etc.

    The answer and counter measure is Trust. Fight like hell to make sure your kid trusts you and that you trust him. Make sure they know how important that is and how hard you are willing to fight for it on both sides, even if that means going through some tough conversations and restrictions.”

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