Forming Resilient Children - by Holly Catterton Allen (Paperback)

About the Book

We can't protect children from all hardships, but we can promote healthy development that fosters resilience. In this interdisciplinary work, Holly Catterton Allen equips educators, counselors, children's ministers, and parents with ways of developing children's spirituality so they can persevere when facing trauma and thrive in challenging times.

Book Synopsis

We can't protect children from all hardships, but we can promote healthy development that fosters resilience. In this interdisciplinary work, Holly Catterton Allen equips educators, counselors, children's ministers, and parents with ways of developing children's spirituality so they can persevere when facing trauma and thrive in challenging times.

Review Quotes

"Forming Resilient Children is a fresh, honest, and deeply valuable resource for anyone whose work includes the care, mentoring, sheltering, counseling, teaching, adopting, fostering, or parenting of children. True stories enhance the insights, research, and practice that Holly Allen has done so well from Sunday school to university classrooms, from African villages to inner-city America, from the fragility of infants to troubled teens. This book is a valuable guide to helping families, congregations, counselors, and teachers equip children with the resilience needed to live well-shaped lives in a world so often out of shape!"

"Forming Resilient Children is a much-needed addition to the field of children's spirituality. Especially now, as we continue to face the ongoing effects of a once-a-century pandemic, children need adults who can help them recover from trauma, process grief, and nurture hope. Whether you're a parent, grandparent, pastor, teacher, or children's ministry volunteer, Holly Allen's superb research will help you understand connections between spirituality and resilience. What is more, she offers strategies and resources that you can use to foster resilience among the children that God has placed in your life."

"Forming Resilient Children shines a bright light toward the need for churches, mentors, and caregivers to partner together to attend to all the places where grief, trauma, and the general struggle of being a human can feel like wading through the darkness for our little ones. Holly Allen brilliantly makes her own research and scholarly work inform the very practical day-to-day conversations we nurture. She provides even more evidence from the field for what we've always intuitively and culturally known to be true: our children need a host of people attending to their spiritual formation."

"Timely! That's the first word that came to mind when I read this book, given the events of 2020-2021. Practical! is the second word. Holly has done a huge service for those who work with children in any setting by providing an extensive resource that connects resilience and spirituality. Acknowledging that all children are spiritual beings is foundational as her starting point for facilitating resilience in children who endure crises of any kind. While recognizing the effect of the pandemic on children, she bookends her work with a powerful story of family resilience while enduring a natural disaster and its aftermath. Well-researched and loaded with stories that put flesh on the guiding principles Holly has developed, Forming Resilient Children is a must-have addition to my library of resources focusing on the intrinsic value and capability of children and their families."

"A career walking alongside children experiencing hard places has taught me that trauma and grief respect no one. Holly Catterton Allen understands this. She knows that everything in this world is tested, even the faith of children. So she guides us in realistic practices empowering children to shape a faith resilient enough to endure the blowing and beating winds of life. Holly sagely sifts through work from multiple disciplines of scholarship, countless conversations with peers, hundreds of stories from the field, and her own research and experience to give us a model of resilient spiritual formation that works with all children-those living a blessed life and those walking through hard places. This book is a gift of wisdom and hope."

"Holly Catterton Allen loves children, and it shows in every aspect of her life and work, and especially in this new book, Forming Resilient Children. One of the heartbreaking realities of our world today is that there are many children caught in difficult circumstances who experience trauma, loss, and suffering. For so many of us, our desire is to protect them from this reality or distract them from it, hoping they can somehow escape it. This is both foolish and futile. Instead, Holly invites all of us-parents, grandparents, teachers, and others who love and care for children-to learn how to foster and support the kind of spiritual growth and vitality that enables children to hope, lean on God, and persevere in the midst of the hard times that come to us all, young and old. This book is a gift to us all, so I urge you to receive it as such and lend your ears to someone who has much wisdom to share. Your children will thank you for it."

"Holly Catterton Allen provides great wisdom and assistance, which come from her lifelong journey of ministering with children and studying what is best for them. She highlights the importance of the spiritual nurture of children in the forming of resilience. . . . The book is written for a wide range of persons: parents, grandparents, persons leading ministries with children and families in the church, counselors, and those who work in settings where overt spiritual conversations are not allowed. It is a valuable resource for those who desire to raise resilient children to know God and live well in our changing world."

"In a field burgeoning with new research, Holly Catterton Allen provides a concise, engaging resource for Christian leaders, parents, and caregivers searching for ways to support the spiritual lives of children in their midst. This book offers a practical guide for Christian leaders to merge findings from the fields of children's spirituality and resilience. Weaving together stories of traumatic events from children's lives, Allen invites the reader to explore the simple but profound ways that support for children's spiritual lives can help them find resilience and hope."

"What makes this book work so well is the pairing of Holly Allen's interdisciplinary breadth and her ability to root her insights in relatable stories. I'm delighted that the important connection between children's spirituality and resilience has been given such thoughtful and well-informed treatment. This is a really worthwhile addition to literature on children's spirituality."

"With masterful use of engaging story and sound research, Holly Catterton Allen has given us a thorough and thoughtful exploration into the innate connection between children's spirituality and resilience. She offers practical insights that enable each of us to participate in nurturing resilience in children within the everyday fabric of life where hope and wonder reside. Dr. Allen doesn't avoid the hard topics but gently offers guidance around accompanying children as they process their grief and trauma. Forming Resilient Children is the book the world needs right now. Every adult who hopes for good needs to read this book for the good of the children within their circle of influence; our present and future demand it. Forming Resilient Children is a book that I will be returning to over and over; I recommend it highly."

About the Author

Holly Catterton Allen (PhD, Talbot School of Theology) is professor of family studies and Christian ministries at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. She has previously taught at John Brown University, Biola University, and Abilene Christian University. Allen's areas of scholarly interest are children's spirituality and intergenerational issues, and she leads two national, ecumenical conferences: InterGenerate and the Children's Spirituality Summit. She is the editor of Nurturing Children's Spirituality and InterGenerate and the coauthor of Intergenerational Christian Formation.