The following podcast is a DR Media Production.

Hello and welcome to Raising Good Humans. I'm your host, Dr. Lisa Pressman, and today's

discussion is with Professor Sunia Luther, who is a professor of psychology at Arizona State

University and a professor emerita at Columbia University's Teachers College, where I had the

privilege of working with her as my first mentor in my first lab in graduate school. Sunia did

decades of resilience research, and while she started working with youth and poverty

and children and families affected by mental illness, she encountered another vulnerability

teenagers in affluent communities going to high achieving schools. This is not something that people

understand is an actual vulnerability that puts kids at risk. It does, and we're not having this

conversation to scare anyone. This is really a conversation to help parents buffer the effects

of that risk, and what we can do about what's going on right now with these achievement stresses.

I wanted to start by having you explain what resilience looks like.

Resilience is essentially doing well, functioning well in the face of adversity or stress or

any kind. Basically, if you're talking about children and adolescents, it's their functioning

well in terms of their schoolwork, getting on with peers with teachers, and you know, not

experiencing mental health difficulties. That's basically what resilience means.

If we're thinking about resilience, I think a lot of people make assumptions that you're either

born with resilience, or you have certain qualities that are going to make it easier for you,

but can you build resilience? Or is it related to temperament?

I should clarify, Lisa, that resilience is not a personality trait, so it's not something we're

making them be in terms of more persevering or more stick to it or more sterile. What we're talking

about is helping bring the child assets, things that will help the child flourish and thrive in general.

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