Raising Reslient Children

What is resilience, and why is it a quality you should want to develop in your child?

Resilience (or resiliency) is our ability to adapt and bounce back when things don't go as planned. Resilient people don't wallow in or dwell on failures; they acknowledge the situation, learn from their mistakes, and then move forward.

When you take a moment to think about children, you start to realise how important resilience is. Children are continually learning new skills and facing challenges. In schools, there are specific plans put in place by teachers to stretch and challenge children. They are often taken out of their comfort zone, and they are constantly facing new experiences and obstacles. For children, challenges and tough times could include experiences like losing at a game, tasting new food, visiting a friend’s house, learning a new skill, starting at a new school or nursery, moving house, or welcoming a sibling into the family. They can also include more serious experiences like being bullied, family breakdown, family illness or death.

Resilient children are less likely to deal with problems in unhealthy ways, such as getting defensive or aggressive or intentionally hurting themselves or others. Resilient children are also likely to have better physical and mental health than children who struggle to be resilient. They will view life in a more optimistic way.

Children who are resilient can recover from setbacks and get back to living their lives more quickly. And when children overcome setbacks and problems, it builds their confidence and helps them feel more capable the next time a problem comes up. Resilient children are often good at solving problems and learning new skills. This is because they’re more willing to try again even if things don’t go the way they wanted the first time.

How can you develop your child’s resilience?

Children build resilience over time, through experience. You can help your child learn skills and develop resilience by having a warm, supportive relationship with them. When things don’t go well and your child feels anxious, sad, disappointed, afraid or frustrated, it is their resilience that helps them understand that these uncomfortable emotions usually don’t last forever. They can experience these emotions and know they’ll be OK before too long. Resilience isn’t about packing away those uncomfortable feelings; it is about sitting with them, acknowledging them and understanding they will pass. As the warm and loving adult in their life, you can help you child by reminding them of this.

As with all aspects of parenting, you can also be an amazing role model for your children and show them how you are being resilient in every part of your lives. You can do this by sharing with them the things that are hard for you and verbalise how you are being resilient. For me it would be something as simple as putting together a piece of IKEA furniture. It is always a challenge, laying out all the parts and trying to work out how to put it all together. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. But you get there in the end!

As a parent, don’t have unrealistic expectations of your child. Children who are expected to excel in all areas of their lives or who are perfectionists may find it more challenging to be resilient. The relentless pressure to always perform at a high level can create anxiety, fear of failure, and a sense of inadequacy. Whilst it’s important to have high standards, it’s also important to understand that “good enough” is healthier for your child’s wellbeing and this is the message you want to share with them.

If your child struggles with resilience then one really simple tool to use with them is a gratitude journal. This is a key resilience building activity that only takes a couple of minutes each day but by making it a regular habit, you can support your child to build resilience over the long-term. A gratitude journal helps build resilience by focussing on positive experiences and feelings. This can help to shift a child’s perspective and build a more positive outlook. This process can also help your child to reframe negative experiences into positive ones. What positive things can they take from negative events? For example, falling over at playtime and hurting their knee may have been upsetting for them but wasn’t it kind of their friend to go with them to see the teacher for first aid? It is so lovely to have a friend that they can depend on when things go wrong. Practising gratitude helps us to focus on positive aspects of our lives which can build a more optimistic outlook.

Tips for parents

Let them fail

This is critical but also hard as it goes against our natural parenting goals. However, a fear of failure and perfectionism are risk factors for young people developing a sense that they are not good enough. No child can win the gymnastics competition every time or be top of the class in every test. It’s unhealthy for a child not to be experienced in coping with failure.

Let them experience those difficult emotions

Label those tricky emotions for your child and them to “sit with” those emotions until they pass. As a parent, you can provide a supportive presence while they are experiencing those feelings and be a reflective voice after they have passed.

Encourage resilience-building activities

It is really important for children to get a wide range of different experiences, to develop resilience in different life skills as well as in daily routines. Organisations such as the Guides and Scouts provide great opportunities for your child to gain new skills in areas they would not normally encounter, from survival skills to DIY, first aid to performing or trying a new sport. It’s one thing to be resilient in playing football and be able to bounce back from a defeat, but it’s another to have the satisfaction of preparing a meal over a campfire. Both are valuable, both take practice!

 Look for the positives

Highlight personal qualities or individual characteristics which will boost your child’s resilience, such as determination, courage or a sense of humour. It is often easy to focus on negatives and sometimes children don’t recognise their own strengths.

Encourage problem-solving skills from an early age

Dealing with challenges can take some skill and not all difficult situations have a solution, but many do. Teach your child that most things do have a solution if we can work it out. Support them to solve problems rather than diving in and sorting it out for them.

Develop and foster a ‘Growth Mindset’

Growth Mindset is an idea developed by psychologist Carol Dweck. It is used widely in schools and can also be useful to teach at home. It is based on the idea that our brains are growing and developing all the time; nothing is static or fixed. Encourage your child to switch from, ‘I can’t ride a bike.’ to, ‘I can’t ride a bike yet.’

Model Resilience

Children learn so much by watching how their parents behave and respond. Whenever something does not work out as planned or you experience failure, model a positive response to your child. During tough times or times of stress or change, show them that you can withstand the storm and bounce back to a better place, even if there are tears or upset along the way.

The key to understanding the importance of resilience is accepting that facing challenges in life can be useful for everyone, including our children. Trials and tribulations help us grow as a person and give us knowledge and skills that make us better prepared the next time something challenges us. By raising resilient rascals, we are equipping them with one of the best life skills they can develop.