Julie Jay: Lessons in resilience from my personal parenting guru 

My 'paediatrician' — aka a friend with four children — told me that as much as my children will have to become resilient in the face of rejection by their peers, I need to be resilient for them too

When rejection and exclusion do happen, as they inevitably will, I will remind them there will always be other kids to play with, and that our worth is not dependent on being picked first for football teams or being at the centre of things all the time. Picture: iStock

Parents are essentially a buffer between their children and the world. As such, it’s so important to give them skills to deal with rejection and disappointment, because they will inevitably be rejected at some point. Unless, of course, the child you are rearing is Olivia Dean.

Recently, in the playground, I was worried Number One had been left out. There was a game of chase going on where the bigger kids were playing with one another. As much as Number One wanted to get involved, it was clear the other kids weren’t sold on the idea. My heart broke a little for him, and not just because I worried how this would affect his chances of becoming a professional chase player one day. No, I was sad because in that moment, he was sad.

But as a parent, our job is to keep things right-sized, so I kept my inner monologue to myself.

As he found another group to play with, I found myself in emotional free fall. What if this is how social isolation starts? I asked myself. Is this a regular occurrence? Is it part of a bigger problem?

Of course, I didn’t relay any of these fears to Number One, who had moved onto the big slide with other kids and seemed happy enough to do his own thing. Yet, that moment of seeing him momentarily excluded stayed with me long after we had trundled home and got the wellies off.

I could not help but feel melancholic because as much as I want to wrap my kids in cotton wool, I know these social exclusions are going to happen.

I let the sadness percolate long after the kids had gone to bed, eventually deciding to send a voice note to my paediatrician — by paediatrician I, of course, mean a friend of mine who has four children, and thus is an expert in how to make a packet of three chicken fillets stretch to feed six people and how to remain calm at all times.

She reminded me that the entire interaction might have gone completely over Number One’s head, and how what happened could be bringing me back to a time when I felt a little bit less than.

Of course, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth: I was an extremely popular, athletic child who never felt the sting of rejection. Always picked first for sports teams, my blonde hair always shiny and my legs turning brown in the sun, you could be forgiven for thinking I had no problems. But you would be wrong, because I had many — primarily because this version of myself is of course entirely a work of fiction.

But as my friend continued to talk, I had a lightbulb parenting moment about the lesson to be gleaned from this incident.

“I know, it’s about helping them be resilient,” I said, cutting across my friend in a way only those of us who can’t afford the €700 fee for an official ADHD diagnosis can do.

“Well, it’s not just about them being resilient,” my guru of all things children-related said, “it’s about you being resilient for them too.”

Even my frenetic brain was momentarily silenced. It’s true, of course. I have never been one for a poker face — I tend to wear all my feelings across my forehead and find it hard to put on a front when disappointed. But being a parent is about putting on a front and being strong for them in a way you could never be for yourself.

I know that as the list of extracurricular activities grows, the odds of my children being excluded at some point will grow exponentially. I am already thinking about ways I can respond that don’t involve me dropping to my knees and weeping.

When rejection and exclusion do happen, as they inevitably will, I will remind them there will always be other kids to play with, and that our worth is not dependent on being picked first for football teams or being at the centre of things all the time. That they are still utterly deadly, while recognising their feelings of sadness or disappointment are totally valid, even to be expected.

When they’re a little bit older, I will remind them of Nadine Coyle, who was excluded from the band Six when her real birth date was discovered and it was found she did not meet the minimum age requirement to join the group. Of course, we know all of this because it was played out on the reality show Pop Stars, with the show far outweighing the success of the band itself.

Coyle’s next move was to join the second instalment of the British Popstars franchise, Popstars the Rivals, and it was on this show she became a member of a little band called Girls Aloud. The rest, as they say, is history.

My point is that, really, rejection is just redirection, a way that the universe can push you towards your tribe. As parents, our job is to help them bounce back — and come out fighting, preferably to Girls Aloud’s first hit: 'Sound of the Underground'.