Showing UP for Sophia: What is Resilience?
“Kids are resilient — they can bounce back from anything.”
I’ve heard these words often. I’ve repeated them myself, especially to myself. I meant them without question. Until I started having conversations about healthy relationships with youth who were kept in cages.
Our society refers to these structures as juvenile detention centers — a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment after being convicted of crimes. Quite a sentence for youth who don’t have fully developed brains until the age of 25 — the development of the prefrontal cortex affects how to regulate emotions, control impulsive behavior, assess risk and make long-term plans. In addition, the cerebellum affects cognitive maturity, but unlike the prefrontal cortex, the development of the cerebellum appears to largely depend on environment, as Dr. Jay Giedd at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego told PBS.
Knowing the way of the brain, I trained my own to be silent and listen whenever I shared spaces with youth. While my job sent me with an agenda, my mission was to understand what resilience meant to them. They shared through stories of what they were shown — people in their lives who modeled behaviors that mimicked serenity and success, which inspired them to follow suit. Never mind these behaviors ranged from drinking alcohol to watching television, ways to calm themselves and bounce back from trauma. They weren’t wrong. Their role models weren’t wrong. Trauma triggers the mind to react in ways that make sense to it.
As youth, when we see a parent/caretaker smoking after having a “fight” to “relax”, this is resilience. Our brains are programmed by our perceptions of the world. It’s not right or wrong in our minds unless we’re told so.
The incarcerated kids were not exceptions to the rule. Though the rules changed their sentence depending on their race. Same crimes, different timeframes. Color mattered and everyone knew it.
Which meant the youth were told what to think and how to behave, especially if they wanted to be released. Without questioning authority, they followed instructions — saying what needed to be heard instead of being taught how to trust themselves by having Awareness of their needs, setting and respecting Boundaries for themselves and others, and only Consenting to behaviors that felt right to them.
Is it any wonder they didn’t initially trust me either? I reminded them of adults who looked like me and let them down. I didn’t blame them. I didn’t trust adults, starting with my own parents who taught me how to separate myself from myself by shaming my tan in the summer and lack of color in the winter. The privilege from my white heritage imprisoned my Mexican pride causing the youth to mistake my shade.
They saw me as “white” which meant I wanted to be “right” which meant they were automatically “wrong” which meant no one learned anything from anyone even though we were all there to be schooled. Because when the brain makes up it’s mind to be closed, only the heart can open it.
Through practice, I gradually built their trust by sharing space and asking what they needed to stay in it with me. At first, my questions were confusing. They weren’t used to being asked of anything that didn’t lead to a lecture. Suspicions were frequent with youth not understanding why I cared and what I planned to do with their answers. Years later, I find myself reflecting and implementing their schooling into my own life.
In one week, Sophia will be back. I’m feeling pride and joy wanting to see my pride and joy, and terrified knowing everything is different — with me, the world, and our future. Since February she’s grown inches and a vocabulary, while being sheltered from the Covid pandemic and racial uprising in middle America.
Here, with me, she won’t be. This is what I asked for and what I’ve continued to ask every class — what is resilience? While I may fear I haven’t read enough or learned enough to teach Sophia effectively by myself, thankfully I’m not. I have an environment of role models to learn from — my parents’ past will affect Sophia’s future if I choose to repeat it, kids will continue to be caged if we judge their actions based on their skin color, and hurt people will hurt people if we don’t take time to discover where discomfort lives.
To teach resilience, I must be willing to question the trauma I experienced and understand how it can become learned behavior. Especially in a world that pretends to be colorblind until a crime is committed. I know better and our youth deserve better, which is why Sophia will be raised to recognize that racial justice is resilience for us all.
This piece was originally written on June 24, 2020. Why did it take over two years to share? Because it wasn’t time. Thankfully healing is not linear. Gratefully my baby steps have all been steps toward showing UP for Sophia and being better for her, because I showed up for my self first.