As a clinical social worker and resilience researcher, the children I treat have been my most important coresearchers. They’ve taught me to be careful about what I consider “pathology” and to reconsider the belief that there’s only one clinically “correct” way to help them. By showing me how they see the world, my young clients have made me understand that respecting the underlying reasons for their behavior is usually the best way of helping them find alternative solutions to the challenges they face.

Jake’s story of resilience is a good example. I first met the moody 13-year-old, who had dull, expressionless eyes, 18 months after his parents separated. He came to see me at the community clinic where I worked. His guidance counselor at school had warned his mother that he’d fail 8th grade if he kept skipping school. Jake grudgingly agreed to meet with me, but refused to have his mother or his father in the room. I’d soon learn that he didn’t want to count on anybody but himself to make things right, which was reflected in his choice to see me alone.

Over the course of two meetings, I learned that Jake’s father, Patrick, had made several suicide attempts before he and his wife had separated—the last attempt while his son was home with him alone. With remarkable emotional calm, Jake described the episode that had happened when he was 11. “I found my father hanging from a hot water pipe in the basement,” he said, avoiding my eyes and saying little else. When I…