Avoiding the "Cobra Effect" in Parenting and Mentoring

Resilience.

Who doesn't want that for their child? In fact "the lack of resilience" may be recognized as one of the leading problems with today's youth as they leave the home.  

I would like to use the article, "Resilience—Spiritual Armor for Today’s Youth"
by Lynn G. Robbins, as the jumping place for a discussion to take place monthly over the course of the next year to help us apply this to our Vanguard Group methods and our home.  Although it is from literature published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I feel the principles are universal and look forward to respectful feedback and discussion referencing sources and experiences from many different world views.  To have capable and empowered youth for the future is everyone's concern.

The starts with this analogy:

The story is told that during British rule of colonial India, an unacceptable number of venomous cobras lived in and around Delhi. To solve the problem, local authorities began paying a bounty for dead cobras. The ill-advised bounty backfired when enterprising locals began breeding cobras for profit. When the bounty ended, the breeders set the cobras free, further compounding the problem.
The phenomenon of unintended consequences sometimes causing more harm than intended benefits is known as the “cobra effect.”

 The article is meaningful and had a profound effect on my parenting paradigm already when I went running this morning with my 6 year old biking along.

I had a different approach to how I interacted with him.  I carefully explained why I was riding on the road in certain places, how it was safe for me to be on the road at times because I could recognize the patterns of traffic and how I  could be seen because I was bigger.  I gave him the opportunity to travel behind me or to stay on the sidewalk, giving him choices that he could act on according to his comfort after being mindful of the dangers of the different options.  Both options were safe, but it gave him the chance to face them on his own terms.  I explained more to him the principles behind my choices rather than just demanding obedience and compliance as is so easily my default.  
It was a good experience!


I would like to invite you to read the article (pretty quick read) and then we will use the following article with it's 8 points as a center for our discussion this year.  I would like to invite you to comment below or ask for author permission and I will have you post an article on this blog. You can also do it on our FB group.

The first tip for helping our youth develop resilience is:

1. Model good coping skills. Teach by example. When your own emotions are high, say things like, “I can tell I’m getting frustrated. So, I’m going to take a deep breath (or pray, or take a little walk, etc.) before I try again.” Or, “I’m sorry I got angry. I need to try again.”

Just starting with this question on my mind as I studied my core book this morning, I found 13 different principles to help me personally avoid "the cobra effect":
1.Take upon us responsibility for our areas of stewardship and actions
2. Act with soberness (and not just the non-alcoholic kind :D)
3. Come into the temple (or place of personal highest worship or communion with God)
4. Be diligent
5. Recognize personal weaknesses
6. Seek help of Creator to recognize struggles in others
7. Have courage to recognize virtue 
8. Know which tools that are at our disposal to use
9. Just because we have great resources or "riches"-- don't be prideful!
10. Don't make excuses
11. Honor male/female roles
12. Be mindful of your example
13. We are responsible to seek and know truth so we can help those in our stewardship

I look forward to reading your thoughts this month as you think about how we can better model good coping skills!