More whine with your meal?

Yesterday, all three of us were... hmm... not exactly at our best (jolly bike adventures notwithstanding). There was a lot of whining. Dutch has been even more of a drama queen lately, and when things go wrong, she usually bursts into genuine tears and appears to be utterly crushed. She sometimes announces that her heart is broken.

I think I've talked about resilience (the quality that allows people to persevere in spite of obstacles), and the fact that Dutch appears to have very little of it. Yesterday, that was extra-apparent. Her response to any challenge is to crumple up in whiny misery, and that's been the case all her life. Her playmates, to varying degrees, have always seemed to be more resilient (plucky, game, perseverant, tough, etc.). Not my girl.

Which is fine. Not everyone is plucky. Anyway, plucky people are kind of annoying, right? All that glass-half-full crap.

I'm pretty sure that Dutch's predisposition to nonpluckiness is genetic, and I'm pretty sure that we're not somehow driving her to it with bad parenting. I just wish that there was something I could do to help her learn some mental habits that would make her better able to problem-solve. Whiny-despair-crumpling isn't, in my experience, a very good way to get through life.

I figure, though, that she'll work out some strategies herself. She may not be plucky, but she sure is stubborn.