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NORTH ATTLEBORO - When you get home tonight, get out a piece of paper and divide it into two columns. In one column, write down words you hope your child would use to describe you. Think, "What have I done in the last three to six months so that it's likely they'll use those words?" Then, in the other column, write down the words you think he or she would actually use in describing you.

How do those columns compare?

Uh-oh.

It's one of the exercises veteran psychologist Robert Brooks asked parents to conduct at his recent talk "Raising Resilient Children and Teens" at North Attleboro High School. The presentation, sponsored by the Greater Attleboro Area Council for Children, drew about 250 parents, teachers and administrators.

Brooks is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and has served as director of the department of psychology at McLean Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital. He lectures nationally and internationally and has penned and co-authored a variety of books on raising children. Yet, as a young father raising two sons along with his wife, his checklist of credentials wouldn't hold water in the most important quarters.

"In your own home, your children refuse to read your resume," he said with some amusement. No matter how many degrees you hold or what extensive credentials you might have, it doesn't make the job of parent any easier.

He told of a time when his son Douglas was 10 and appeared as part of a Father's Day special with his other son Richard and their dad on a live television show. Asked about his father, Douglas stared right into the camera and said, "What my father says on television and what he says at home are completely different."

It wasn't exactly a glowing recommendation. "That's why I haven't seen Douglas in 26 years," joked Brooks, who is now a grandfather.

As a father and a doctor dealing with parents and their children in clinical sessions over the years, Brooks said he's found that one of the most important skills parents need in relationships with their children is empathy - "the ability to put yourself in someone's shoes and see things through their eyes."

He said knowing your child's temperament and interests, and forgoing your preconceived images of what you think your child should be versus who he or she is, can help to foster empathy and, in turn, help parents boost their child's resiliency to better handle what lies ahead.

"We will never know all of the challenges our children will face," Brooks said. But he added that parents and teachers can equip them with skills so they can better deal with what's thrown at them.

Granted, he said, it's pretty hard for parents to be empathetic when they're upset, annoyed or disappointed.

When a child who may handle things in a different way and a parent who is not empathetic get together, it can lead to head-butting and "you don't care how he feels," Brooks said. At that point, "we just want the kid to do what we want them to do."

He said parents, teachers and others who are involved in raising and educating children, need to be "charismatic adults - an adult from whom a child or adolescent gains strength." Brooks said a charismatic adult never minimizes or denies a child's problems. They always look for what he called "the islands of competence" in their child; their beauty and strengths.

He said he once talked to a mother who started in on a litany of her child's problems. She was so "burned out" in dealing with her child, Brooks said, but when he asked what her child's strengths were, she got upset, saying it was the problems that needed to be fixed.

He said parents have images of what their child will be before they are even born. And when the child doesn't match that image, there's friction and disillusionment that parents can find difficult to deal with.

Brooks told of one couple, both highly educated, outgoing and active in sports, who had two children. The 17-year-old daughter was "just like them." Their 13-year-old son was born with learning problems, did not have many friends, and was klutzy and not inclined toward sports.

The boy acted out in school by setting a controlled fire in a trash can. In a discussion with the parents, the father acknowledged that he had been disappointed in his son since he was born. When Brooks repeatedly questioned what the boy's strengths were, the father said, "I'm too embarrassed to tell you." The mother gave that refrain as well. The father, when asked what the boy was good at, persisted in saying "a 13-year-old boy should not be doing this."

Pressed, the father finally revealed that his son liked tending plants.

In his father's image, he was not living up to his image of a son that should be getting good grades, playing sports, and enjoying lots of friends, Brooks said.

He acknowledged that he hadn't been much better when it came to his son Richard when he was younger. His first comment to his son upon arriving home from work would always be, "Did you do your homework?"

Richard eventually became resentful, turning away from his father's constant questioning about the homework versus praise for the other things he did, including leading youth groups.

"Accept that every kid is different," Brooks said. Accepting a child for who he or she is is different from letting them get away with something. But "know your child and their characteristics" in dealing with issues that come up.

The first thing out of the mouth of a parent of a shy child, for example, should not be, "Did you talk to anybody today, because if you don't you won't make friends." A better approach would be: "I know it's not easy for you to say hello to people, maybe we can figure out together how to do it."

"I've never met anybody that actually enjoys being shy," Brooks said.

Parents, Brooks said, have to let their child know they're on their side. And to be there when they fall.

"Children should not be afraid to fall on their face," he said, noting, "humiliation is one of the greatest fears" anyone faces.

If they strike out, whether it's in baseball or on a test, you don't exactly expect a child to say with glee "this is a teachable moment!" Brooks said. However, in their own way, children can be taught, "I can learn from this."

Children who get hung up on their mistakes without guidance on how to handle them tend to blame others.

Parents can model appropriate ways to deal with mistakes in the way they themselves handle those situations.

And when it comes to discipline, "hold them accountable, but teach them how to be accountable," he said. "Am I disciplining my child in a way that they're learning to be resilient or resentful?"

Provide encouragement and positive feedback instead of being an authoritarian and a constant critic.

He said many parents suffer from "praise deficit" when it comes to their children, criticizing them for what they have not done in their eyes and failing to pat them on the back when they have accomplished something in their own way.

Brooks said that even the smallest change in the way a parent deals with a child can make a difference.

It can be hard work, he said, but if parents do nothing, then it will be even harder to deal with their child and prepare that child to deal with whatever life hands them.

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.