As a parent/caregiver, watching a child in your care struggle with reaching their goals and objectives can be challenging. Whether it’s dealing with normal challenges that arise in school or work, building their own self-confidence, or helping them heal after trauma, children (and adults) can struggle with feeling hopeless.
Hopelessness is a belief that there’s no other path forward. Using and teaching the power of hope can help youth shift their mindset away from negative feelings and instill tools they can use for the rest of their life.
Hope for Your Mental Health
How can hope improve mental health? Studies on the science of hope began in the 1980s, and it was determined that hope is an action-oriented skill that can be learned, versus just something that you “feel.” There is a growing body of research (American Psychological Association) that to cultivate positive change in ourselves, in others, or society at large, restoring hope is the vital first step.
Unlike feelings, which can change and be fickle, hope is a cognitive process backed by action. Beliefs tend to follow thoughts, so by actively working on and improving your beliefs of hope, you can greatly benefit your mental health and increase your self-esteem. It has implications for subsequent physical health and wellbeing outcomes (research from NIH National Library of Medicine).
What are the steps to take to start harnessing the power of hope in your daily life? There are three primary steps:
- Set a clear goal/objective: Whether for yourself or your loved one. Make sure to pick something that is realistic. Goals are great for pushing ourselves forward but making them too abstract can make it more difficult. For helping your child, maybe they have a goal of making a sports team or improving their grades. What are small realistic ways that your child, with your support, can make that goal?
- Define your pathway: Plan on how you will achieve that goal with realistic, actionable steps. When you don’t plan, you “plan to fail” as the saying goes, so ensure you have clear steps to reach your goal. For your child, help them discover their agency and navigate pivoting or changing pathways when they encounter roadblocks or change to their goals.
- Understand your agency: What important abilities do you have to support the path to this goal? What are you realistically capable of, and what may you need help with from others?
Make sure to start small to allow more frequent achievements – this is important for everyone, and especially for those with anxiety or depression. Small, frequent wins will compound overtime, helping folks feel more capable and hopeful. Along with small wins, be ready to pivot if needed and allow some flexibility - sometimes we find our intended pathways don’t lead to our goals. Instead of viewing as a setback, use as new information to understand what pathways won’t work, and chart a new course.
Utilize building hope and setting achievable goals as an opportunity to connect with them – having these conversations in the store, doing chores, so they feel comfortable talking about it with you, and having open and honest conversations about what they can achieve.
Celebrate Success
A part of building hope is recognizing and feeling successful after achieving something. Sometimes people need someone who cares about them, on the outside looking in, to point out when they’ve been successful. But also keep in mind that success looks different for everyone, and you and your child can define what success looks like for you and your family. You don’t need to have constant big “wins” to be successful, life is not a football game. Celebrate small achievements made along the way.
Just as you help them navigate their feelings when they are feeling down, help them navigate their feelings of hope, success, pride and building their self-confidence. Go over what they did to reach their goal and how they achieved their success, so they can reinforce their process and tools they used to fall back on as they grow up. Using hope as an actionable tool to help build up their self-confidence and build resilience, so when they face challenges in life, which they will, they know they handle it.
Nexus Family Healing is a national nonprofit mental health organization that restores hope for thousands of children and families who come to us for community mental health services, foster care and adoption, and residential treatment. For over 50 years, our network of agencies has used innovative, personalized approaches to heal trauma, break cycles of harm, and reshape futures. We believe every child is worth it — and every family matters. Access more resources at NexusFamilyHealing.org/resources.