The ability-skill to solve problems is one of the greatest lessons parents can teach to their children. This capacity evolves from simple struggles to managing a large business proposal due Thursday or feeding four hungry mouths right now. Problems by themselves do not make us strong; it is the solution of problems that strengthens the muscles of our character. It is fundamental to a successful and happy life.

Let's call a problem anything that creates a biological tension. What provokes this pressure is highly variable and individual. For you, treating some serious illness may do it; for me, it could be trying to find the same colored socks. Everyone and every situation has a unique list of problems. Some are troubling on anyone's scale; another may be a child's scraped knee; in relationships it could be finances or who does the dishes.

Parents begin to teach problem solving during the first eight months of developmental captivity. Human infants, until they crawl, are purposefully immobilized by immaturity. They cannot go anywhere without their parents. This proximity facilitates transmission of information on how to problem solve, which is really how to manage internal tension. This is broadcast over the shortest of distances from the face of the mother to the eyes of the infant.

This proximity permits the parents to sculpt the evolving brain. They facilitate affect-regulation of the autonomic nervous system. The baby reacts to its environment by hormonal and physiological responses. These are in turn tempered by the mother intervening to soothe when the baby is overwhelmed, or excite when dulled. When tension builds in the infant due to fear, cold, hunger, loneliness or pain, the perceptive mother reacts appropriately to the child's needs and the two calm together. Conversely when the child is down, the mother energizes her child with smiles and active play.

From these million-minute moments the mother embeds security into her child. A secure child will signal its distress with crying when a mother departs. When she returns the child is cleansed from the waste products of tension. The heart rate slows, the cortisol decreases and the muscular tightness relaxes. This is the beginning of a child learning how to solve the biological aspect of a problem. Each child, to be truly secure, must have chances to test themselves with the opportunity to explore and discover without intrusion.

Moving out from this circle of security is resilience, which is security under fire. Some authors have reported that resilience has the features of self-awareness, the ability to work with others, the capacity to talk about problems, and to have spiritual reserve and an attitude of acceptance. Resilience is a product of the parent teaching the stimulated infant from a specific stress by reacting with a specific awareness to that problem. If the child is cold, feeding him does not make him warm. Second, the emotional availability of the parent implants feelings that others can be part of the solution, and finally as the caretaker soothes a fussy child she uses communication describing the reaction. She instructs with words and tone, the language of solutions. These parental messages spoken and delivered by facial expressions synchronize brains of the master teacher-mother to the student-child to resolve troubles. The product of this parent-to-child interaction is the ability to solve present and future problems. As an adult, the same biological response learned in infancy will be reproduced. When there is the stress, the person's affect stays under control due to the learned regulation. If there is a problem, your child doesn't have to run away; he or she knows how to handle the pressure. Also, the child doesn't emotionally make the problem greater. The child talks and asks questions of others, asks for help if necessary and delegates, if desirable, without feelings of helplessness. The child has been given chances to try to solve problems on his or her own with security; the child seeks spiritual reassurance and knows he or she is not alone. Tada, the problem is solved.

Joseph Cramer, M.D., is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, practicing pediatrician for more than 25 years and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah. He can be reached at jgcramermd@yahoo.com.