Building resilience in children
The human capacity of burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you’d ever believe in the first place- Jodi Picoult.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back again and again with every obstacle we face. In other words, resilience helps us adapt in the face of adversity, tragedy, threats, or significant stress. As parents, we need to be aware that children will face some form of adversity as they go through life and consciously prepare them for coping with the hard knocks of life. Children do well in life when they look at themselves as winners and have strong inner values and coping skills, hence building self-esteem and self-love through the early years of their life is very crucial which will help them cope better when faced with challenges.
Take an example, Arati is a 16-year-old who is going through some challenging times. Her grades are going down and her school has informed her parents. Daily, her disappointed parents talk harshly to her. They are very upset and cannot understand why she is not bringing in the consistently good grades that she used to. Unknown to them, Arati is facing a lot of self-doubt with the increasing pressure of studies, serious distraction due to social media, and thoughts of being unable to cope with the demands at school. This scenario is not uncommon and can happen in many homes. The first step for the parents would be to find out from the child the reasons for her falling grades and then partner with her to find the solutions. Many such instances can happen where we as parents first need to understand and help our children when they struggle with challenges. We also need to continuously build in our children, the capacity to weather the storms of life or in other words build in them the resilience to cope with challenges as they come.
Below, some of the strategies to build resilience in children have been outlined:
Self-acceptance – The most important aspect is for our children to accept themselves as unique, human, and imperfect. The best thing we can do is to guide them to accept their strengths and weakness and strive each day to become better and better. Children should always feel worthy even if they are not doing well in some aspects of their life. When adults accept children with all their gifts and flaws, children will be able to accept themselves.
Self-respect – This is a great building block for resilience. The underlying belief of self-respect is that ‘I matter’, and ‘I should be treated respectfully by others’. Children with self-respect will avoid risky behavior and situations.
Self-care – Parents, caregivers, and schools need to work at assisting the child to develop to include self-care practices in their daily life. This includes the ability to eat healthily, exercise regularly, carry out relaxation activities, and have a positive mindset. This enables a child to be more able to take care of his or her physical, mental, social and emotional needs. In addition, the child should be able to set simple boundaries in his/ her life such as saying no to unreasonable demands from peers.
Having a positive sense of self – Resilience is highly connected to one’s self-identity and how one looks at the world. This requires helping the child to have a healthy sense of self and develop the ability to love him/ herself. Having healthy self-worth means appreciating yourself in all circumstances and understanding who you are on the inside.
Social skills – Helping children relate well and connect with others is key for them to reach out and interact with people. It strengthens children to be able to give and receive help. Important skills include showing care and concern for others, the skills for making and keeping friends, treating others with respect, and taking responsibility for their actions. Positive family and social connections, learning wisdom through proverbs and sayings will also promote a positive attitude.
Learning to deal with failure – Children should be supported to deal with failure as it is an integral part of learning. One learns coping skills while dealing with small stresses and failures. As the child moves on with his life, the difficulty level increases and the child gradually learns to deal with larger issues as they arise. Through being able to cope with setbacks as a child, he/ she will be better able to cope with setbacks and failures as an adolescent and later as an adult.
Develop a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset – This means developing a ‘can do, will do’ mindset in children. A growth mindset is having the belief that you can change if you apply yourself to a task. Children with growth mindsets believe that intelligence and personal abilities can improve with effort. They see difficult tasks as challenges and can put effort and hard work to solve problems. On the other hand, children with fixed mindsets believe that their intelligence or ability in an area is stable and cannot be improved. The growth mindset will lead to more optimistic children who can cope with challenges as they come their way. The efforts of children need to be applauded rather than their intelligence, looks, or talent. As parents, we need to believe in the growth mindset and promote this attitude in our children.
Help children cope with adversity – Teaching children that adversity is part of life and one needs to cope with it as part of life is a critical aspect of building resilience. Children need to be supported to think positively in difficult situations and be helped to solve problems rather than give up. Having open discussions about daily tasks, fears and failures helps children to discuss issues with parents and cope better with difficult situations. In the journey of building resilience, we need to develop children into responsible individuals who are mentally prepared for facing challenges. Schools too need to prioritize building resilience in children, assisting children to adopt the resilience mindset and developing in them the ability to cope with disappointment and failure.
Teach children to speak the language of resilience – One of the key aspects of home and school should be talking about challenges with children and accepting that challenges and setbacks are part of life and can be dealt with. We need to teach children how to use positive self-talk. Some examples of resilient statements which can be taught at home and school are:
- I will land on my feet like a cat
- There are two sides to every situation
- I may be down now but I am not out
- If things are not working, stop where you are and go another direction
- No situation is too hard for me
Join meaningful groups – Being part of supportive groups can help children learn different skills of decision making, leadership, and connecting with others. Through being valued by other children and learning the art of collaborating with others, parents and caregivers can help their children learn skills of managing their lives and mental health which is key to building resilience. Making connections and building your social support network is key to the resilience journey.
Resilience is not the absence of distress and difficulty. On the other hand, it is the ability to adapt and grow as we go through life and meet challenges head-on. In our role as parents and educators, let us commit to building resilience in our children.
Originally Written by Hema Vinod and Posted at Momspresso
