We were SO wrong about how children develop resilience

I was sent an email recently that I want to talk about here. It was based around the kinds of questions this parent gets from her mother:

"How will your child cope in life if they aren't made to do things they don't want? If they haven't been made to knuckle down and do things that don't suit them? To work when they don't feel like it? To have been brought up with so much freedom of choice that they can't hold down the inevitably restrictive, unappealing job when they need to pay the bills. That they feel entitled to something better than everyone else who knows how to grin and bear it. I was brought up with this learn to suffer mentality. I watched my dad lose his spark as he stuck in a job he hated to fulfil his duty to provide stability for his family. I'm deeply schooled in seeing the burden of responsibility. So I find it hard to answer these concerns with sufficient conviction to stop the niggling that the question sets off. I want to hope for better, but what if my hope is leaving my child ill equipped for if he needs to tow the line?"

This is beautifully expressed, and I'm sure quite common. Many of us will have watched people we love sacrifice their spark for stability. We've seen that "learn to suffer" mentality passed down through generations as if it's some kind of protective armour. A noble thing. The right thing to do. And now, choosing a different path for our children, we naturally worry: are we setting them up to be too soft?

But this 'suffer mentality' so common in our parents' generation gets something very wrong. It confuses meaningless hardship with purposeful challenge.

It mixes up "learning to suffer" with learning to persist through difficulty that matters.

Think about how differently we approach challenges when we can see their purpose. Not just the big, obvious things, but the small everyday ones too. The way we'll spend hours helping someone we care about. How we'll push through exhaustion to look after a sick child. How we'll tackle a problem over and over when we can see why solving it matters. How we'll learn complex new skills for a project we believe in. How we'll face uncomfortable conversations when we know they'll lead to something better. How we'll practice something repeatedly to perform well for people counting on us. How we'll work through physical pain in physiotherapy to get a positive outcome for our body. We don't need anyone to force us through these things. The meaning itself pulls us forward.

That's worlds apart from the kind of suffering we're often told our children need to practice. From pushing through soul-crushing situations just because someone in authority says we should. From accepting toxic environments as "character building."

The science is crystal clear on this (and if you want to hear more, read the P.S. below). When people - children or adults - are forced to go through hardship without any real purpose or control, they don't develop grit or resilience. They develop learned helplessness. They disengage. Stop trying. They move into a state of passive endurance. They keep going, but in a detached, unmotivated way, believing that any extra effort they put in won’t actually change anything.

While meaningful challenges in supportive environments build true resilience and motivation, toxic environments and pointless suffering do the opposite - they increase anxiety and depression, and crush long-term motivation. This isn't just opinion. It's what decades of research into human motivation, workplace psychology, and childhood development tell us.

The absolute rock-solid truth is that children who are allowed to discover what genuinely matters to them, who learn to work through real challenges because the outcome is meaningful to them, are not learning to be soft. They're developing something far more valuable than the ability to endure meaningless hardship. They're learning what it feels like to persist through difficulty because something matters.

And yes, life will throw challenges at them. Yes, they'll face situations that require persistence and grit. But they'll face those challenges in a fundamentally different way: they'll know the difference between necessary hard work and unnecessary suffering. Between pushing through difficulty for something meaningful and accepting toxic situations out of a learned helplessness.

They won't be ill-equipped for life's challenges. They'll be better equipped to face them with discernment and purpose, rather than resigned acceptance.

This lifestyle isn't about raising children who can't handle hardship. It's about raising children who understand that their capacity for hard work should be invested in things that matter, not squandered on things that diminish their spirit.

The question isn't whether they'll be able to toe the line when needed. The question is whether they'll have the confidence and capability to recognise which lines are worth toeing, and which ones they need to redraw.