How to foster resilience in your kid

Jeff Nelligan • April 1, 2024

Prepare your kid for the path, not the path for the kid.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy

A part of my good-natured approach to parenting was that I occasionally liked seeing one of my

sons in a tight, uncomfortable public situation even when it was nerve- wracking for me and

utterly agonizing for him. Call me counterintuitive but don’t call me unfeeling – ha! No kid

evades the crucibles in life and the sooner he or she learns to confront and absorb them the

better.

I’ve beat this drum enough already but I can’t help myself. As parents, we know that childhood

and adolescence have unavoidable tests and yes, consequences. Victories and failures. We also

know that kid problems are exactly that: kid problems. Transitory and minor-league in the

major schemes of life.

Just think back to your childhood – you encountered reverses as a kid

and guess what, you’re still standing. In the history of mankind no kid and no adult has proven

bulletproof.

Certainly there are serious calamities – injuries or deaths in families, medical situations,

parental discord, financial perils. Some of these can take superhuman effort to overcome. I’ve

had a few and I know you have as well. Each one is a consequence of living. No matter how

decent and self-assured a kid is there are going to be ordeals and sometimes disasters. Check

out this list below – any sound familiar? Maybe you have some to add.

• A boy or girl wrestling with friendships and peer pressure; a kid being sucked into

something they know is wrong.

• A child finding themselves on the outside while everyone else is on the inside.

• A kid struggling with academics, athletics or any kind of pursuit, from failing a class to

not being selected for a school production to riding the bench for an entire season.

• A boy and girl’s awkwardness and confusion as they grow into adolescence.

• Sheer bullying and unkindness. (My youngest son, saddled with thick eyeglasses and big

for his age, entered a brand new school in 5th grade and was taunted for months by kids who

were long-timers there.)

Then there are the personal disappointments that are never revealed to a parent. I know for a

fact that my three sons didn’t share everything with me and I was fine with that – if something

was really bad, I figured they’d tell me. Failures and despair will occur again and again over the

days and years. I know. I saw it in the lives of my three sons – missteps and blunders and

heartache. Real pain.

That’s why when those inevitable moments came where each one hit the wall, I wanted them to

be ready to absorb the distress and instinctively find a way forward. There were three lessons to

impart.

First, I worked hard to persuade all three that the best way of avoiding sagas or at least prevent

them from spinning out of control was to always be prepared for what the day would bring.

Second, I strove to have them react to any setback, large or small with as much calm as they

could muster, always keeping the hit in perspective with regards to the bigger picture.

Third, I wanted them to be able to recover fast from difficult scenes with forthrightness. That

meant to clearly assess the problem, adapt to the changed circumstances and then advance

forward, no matter how slowly.

There’s no way to shield your kid from discomfort. And you

shouldn’t. It’s that old saying: Prepare your kid for the path, not the path for your kid. Beware

the fragile son or daughter.

< Older Post Newer Post >

ABOUT THE BOOK

Every Dad in America wants to raise a resilient kid. Four Lessons from My Three Sons charts the course.

Written by a good-natured but unyielding father, this slim volume describes how his off-beat and yet powerful forms of encouragement helped his sons obtain the assurance, strength and integrity needed to achieve personal success and satisfaction. This book isn't 300 pages of pop child psychology or a fatherhood "journey" filled with jargon and equivocation. It's tough and hard and fast. It’s about how three boys made their way to the U.S. Naval Academy, Williams, and West Point – and beyond.

GET THE BOOK NOW

Flag duty and the end of 30 years in politics

By Jeff Nelligan • January 29, 2026

It's 8:30 a.m. on a humid August Tuesday and I’m on the roof of the U.S. Capitol, the Dome rising 280 feet directly above. In my arms is a stack of thin boxes and I’m navigating a plywood gangplank leading to a rusted 15-foot flagpole. A colleague joins me carrying more boxes. She opens one and hands me a 2’ by 4’ American flag which I affix to the pole’s lanyard, raise and lower quickly, unfasten and hand to her as she hands me another. A third colleague brings out more boxes and retrieves the ones containing flown flags. This little dance continues for three straight hours. Afterwards, my colleagues and I carefully re-fold each flag and affix to it a “Certificate of Authenticity from the Architect of the Capitol” reading “This flag was flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of____” and fill in the blank: “The Greater Bakersfield, California Chamber of Commerce”…the 80 th birthday of Wilbert Robinson of Bowie, Maryland, proud veteran of the Vietnam War…” We will perform this task for five days a week until Congress returns from recess. This is my very first job in Washington, D.C. and obviously, I have what it takes. *** Flag duty began my 32-year run in politics and government, which ended last week. It included four tours of duty on Capitol Hill working for three Members of Congress, two Presidential appointments serving Cabinet officers in the Departments of State and Health and Human Services, posts at two independent agencies, and a career position at FDA. The jobs were a mix of purely political positions where being on the south side of an election meant cleaning out your desk and getting good at catchy LinkedIn posts – twice that happened - and career federal government stints where the stakes were less exhilarating. *** I worked principally as press secretary and special assistant. The former job, a common D.C. occupation, was transformed in 2008 with the onset of social media, morphing from daily pronouncements of your boss’s wisdom on the issues of the day to rapid-fire postings on the obvious unreasonableness, even cruelties of your opponents. Sound familiar? As for the latter occupational specialty, special assistant, the terms ‘bagman’ or ‘fixer’ are more apt: A guy always two steps behind the principal but always ready to step up and fix whatever problem arose in daily political life. Need a special vegan lunch for Congressman Busybody, White House tour tickets for the Big Bad High volleyball team, or the personal phone number of the executive assistant to a heavy-duty lobbyist? I was your guy. Every leader needs a fixer. Like anyone else who works in D.C., I occasionally participated in a glam political moment – you know, that unique, epic event that would never ever be forgotten in D.C. history Until it was. *** The best part about government life was working for many men and women who were at the top of their game in the D.C. Swamp, one of the toughest arenas on the planet. Their success, from the vantage point of your humble correspondent, was attributable to four simple rules of life. “If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.” Every office I was in kept metrics on virtually every aspect of the principal’s week – how many meetings and events attended, X posts, interviews, committee votes, constituent letters, action items completed from memos?! Numbers, numbers, and always keeping score – and always the quest to improve. “Never lose it.” In a lifetime of political jobs, I may have heard a boss raise her or his voice half a dozen times, even during and after major-league setbacks. Self-control was their hallmark. One boss, a powerful House Committee chairman once confided to me, “I’m fine that 80 precent of my job is humoring these guys, no matter how crazy they get.” An equally valuable corollary skill: Humility. The ability of these individuals to admit to colleagues and staff when wrong on a particular issue. Which counterintuitively only upped their long-term credibility. “Something’s always gonna go south.” Always the need for a plan C. Every initiative during an upcoming day was scoured for what elements would interfere and how, if they occurred, they could be ameliorated. Hence, in the rare times when things did go south, there was always preparation in advance for getting to 80 percent of what was needed. “Good is not good enough.” Successful politicians and government leaders – and their staffs – never get complacent. If they do, they’re not long for the Swamp. Everyone is always hustling for the edge. A useful corollary learned from an NCO when I was in the Army: Always have your hand up. Volunteering is at the heart of the hustle, the cheerful willingness to take on the new and unknown and do whatever it takes. *** And that’s how it all started. On the second day of my first congressional tour the Member solicited volunteers “for a fun recess job that’ll get you out of the office.” It was flag duty and from that day onwards my government career could only go up. *****