What does resilience look like in children?

[Urbanbeetler]

Is it about children who bounce back up after a scraped knee without much fuss or is that too shallow? Is it more that dogged determination to master a skill or complete a task when things are a bit tough? What do do you actually actively do to make your children resilient? Is it an inate quality or purely nurture? To me it feels like it’s more important than ever right now.

How old are your DC? Has something happened which has concerned you?

They are adult. I teach (p/t) and we are always talking about supporting students in building resilience. On one level I know what that means but how it looks exactly interests me. I wonder if there is something more we could do, learning from parents’ experiences.

I always think that playing a team sport helps to build resilience. You won't always win, but by supporting each other and working together you can improve and maybe be the victors. It always helps if a child can be a gracious winner and loser too.

I think it's things like bring able to lose a game or race or whatever and not chuck a massive strop because they've not won. It's being able to accept that they aren't that good at something and either keep on trying to improve or know when to give up. It's being able to accept criticism (not constant and within reason, obviously).

So a lot of it is going to be about seeing that modelled then? I was crap at sport and always felt like my participation in a team was its downfall! But we played a lot of board games where losing wasn’t modellled very well by my dad. I think I learnt much more about resilience as an adult which wasn’t the best way.

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creative-development/201407/the-resilient-child This is an interesting article about it.

My dc and exh did a lot of well-organised sport though and I agree, that definitely played a part.

The only thing that’s worked for me is to keep on providing evidence to them that where they have persevered, they have had a positive result. It hasn’t meant that they will apply this to every situation: it’s not a magic trick to get them to learn an instrument for instance. But it has meant that when they do have something they’re keen on, they realise that they can work on it and improve. It’s about focusing on the effort and the process of going about something rather than the natural ability and the end result. So, for example, ‘it’s just like when you worked really hard on that subject by doing all those essay plans (older children!) and it worked out well.’

Having a quick scan of that article which I’ll read fully later, the words which jump out for me are, ‘ We are not our mistakes.’ I can see that being useful in school.

Effort and process - definitely.

I think it's something you model from a very young age.

Like at 2 years old when they're trying to build the biggest brick tower but it falls down "wow that was a really good job, shall we try again and see how big we can go next time".

Or at 4 years when trying to ride a bike but struggling "if you keep practicing you'll be able to ride all on your own, that's it let's try again"

I think resilience is showing them that you can't always get what you want, win all the games or races and that life won't always go your way but you still keep trying and keep positive.

Kids who have poor resilience have often been spoilt and sheltered from minor hurt. My son has just started at high school and they have several lessons per week on his timetable specifically to teach resilience, it's an additional lesson to the curriculum!

They're teaching it in primary schools in scotland atm. My ds gets family based resilience homework tasks and all the school assemblies are based on the topic. Current topic is ways to recognise and cope with stress. Sure there must be some info available online for teaching resources.

We are not our mistakes.’ I can see that being useful in school. I say that regularly to my own dc as well as to the children I teach. I also try to get them out of that "I can't do it so I won't even try" mindset that you often hear when they think something's too hard but it's difficult to do in just a day though (I'm on supply). If a child said to me that they're rubbish at drawing for example I'd ask what they think they should do to get better at it.

I think some of it is personality as well. My 2.5 yr old is the type of DC who falls down and shouts 'I'm alright' and gets back up again, and insists on doing everything by themselves even if it takes 5x as long. I was the same as a child, I wanted to have a go at everything regardless of talent (thinking of choir and flute which I doggedly stuck at all through secondary) As an adult I cope better than dh with failure, probably because my parents let me have lots of hobbies and would be as proud of me for the things I was bad at but kept practising/improving as the things I was naturally good at. DHs parents were very much school work is everything! He had a panic attack halfway through one of his uni exams and ended up with a 2.2 :(

I’m not sure it can be taught in a lesson but agree it can be modelled. So overcoming setbacks calmly without drama, not catastrophising mishaps, understanding that mastering a skill takes patience, losing graciously (and winning graciously!). It seems a very current obsession in my workplace, I think by the time you’re an adult if you aren’t resilient you will struggle to learn how to be.

It is more problematic around the cusp of when does supporting a child to become resilient cross over with borderline neglect or abuse. A very tough childhood can leave adults resilient to some things but vulnerable to others. An accusation of mollycoddling from one person can equally be seen as a push to abandon sensible safeguarding and appropriate care.

OP I agree with you about people being resilient about some things and really vulnerable about others. But maybe they are not truly resilient at all and just deny their feelings until it all unravels... As for when supporting someone to be independent becomes neglect I’d say it’s an art not a science. Often that’s where mn can be unhelpful sometimes: just because one person brought up four children as a single parent with no help, doesn’t mean someone else shouldn’t struggle to deal with no sleep with one. What I’m saying is it depends on the child. Surely you encourage them to get outside THEIR comfort zone, not someone else’s. So for instance, whereas a very outgoing, confident child might find it easy to talk in front of the whole school, a more shy, nervous child might be better just starting with speaking out in smaller groups and gradually building up skills and confidence. What isn’t good for their long term resilience is not even getting them to try. By the way OP you sound like an amazing teacher to consider all this. Sorry about the (lack of proper) paragraphs, my IPad is playing up!

They promote this a lot in my DC school and I'd never really thought about it before but its such an important skill, if that's the right word.

They encourage even Reception children to respond to questions in assembly but gently and with lots of support. My DS used to fall apart if he had a run in with one particular child. They remind him not to let one bad five minutes ruin the whole day. Its increased his maturity no end.

I think it's having good self esteem that is not reliant on success, and learning not to take failure personally. I have a child who is a real "have a go"er, but I sometimes think it's built on a basic belief that it's her lot to fail, and that is not resilience. The more practice I get at parenting, the more I think it needs kindness and building them up, with a child like that. You need to start with self esteem, because trying to teach "resilience" without it is just papering over the cracks. I encourage her to say no to things. We need to listen to what her feelings are so that we can teach her that they matter and it's OK for her to listen to them. Her soldiering on with wingwalking even if she hates it and knows she's struggling isn't resilience, it's low self esteem and feeling like her feelings aren't important. With my son, who was an awful loser, we played a lot of games, got him used to losing and modelled better behaviour. With my DD, giving her more opportunities to fail just convinces her she's rubbish at something, but growth mindset still says she should soldier on anyway... it's a quite pressuring place for a child and not good for mental health. [Paragraph break] We also do stuff like teaching them how to fix things. If milk spills on the carpet, don't shout at them, teach them how to remove milk from carpets. Give them opportunities to exercise judgement, and notice & praise good judgement and initiative as you do kindness.

I agree urbanbeetler, I don't think it is clear cut in the sense of the author's five step program or whatever is a one size fits all. As you say childhood who have been exposed to childhood adversities may appear very resilient in some areas but have very low self esteem and be extremely vulnerable in others.

We are not our mistakes

Slightly controversial perhaps, but I think in an effort to promote resilience/self esteem etc we have gone too far and now many children (and young adults) cannot accept responsibility for their actions. The over use of praise for the smallest things can be harmful too IMHO.

Resilience is about unfaltering faith in yourself. No matter what happens or what other people say you don't let it put you off. You just keep doing what you are doing. You keep working towards your goals. A resilient person is a person who doesn't need any validation from anyone else. They are someone who has nothing to prove to the world. They do what they do because that is what they want to do with their life and if they fail at sone point (as most people do) they just find a way to work around it.

Re when is teaching resilience neglect the answer is never. Resilience doesn't stem from being placed in difficult situations (I know, I had a tough choldhood). Resilience comes from being taught to be a reasonable rational person. Resilience is knowing you can always rely on yourself. Indulging unreasonable feelings for instance will prevent a child from growing into a telkiable adult. Not saying no to unreasonable requests like doing things for a child that they can easily do themselves. You look at some people and you see them creating problems for themselves by being unreasonable, self vented and, overemotional. Resilience is about always (every single time) being able to take yourself out if a difficult situation and being able to look at it reasonably and rationally in order to find a solution. It's not about denying feelings alroghter or suppressing them, as PP have said that just leads them to build up. It's about being able to acknowledge your feelings and put them in their place. A resilient person can look at a situation and say. Well look, this has really upset me, it has rather hurt my pride but it's not that big if a deal. Yes I could overreact to this but I will just cause problems for myself. I need to accept what has happened to me, learn from it (whether it is not repeating mistakes or not modeling the bad behaviour of others) and get on with my life. It would be stupid to let sonething like this have a long term negative impact on my life.

The over use of praise for the smallest things can be harmful too IMHO.

I have to disagree oldgimmer78. Once you get out into the world, or even stay at home and fall down the rabbit hole of social media, you realise there a thousand and one ways the world is going to shit on you from a great height. Rewards, praise and encouragement go a long way when you're young to grow a thick skin to know you can fend off the nonsense and judgments that you've got to tolerate as an adult.

I'm not saying not to expose DC to challenges and difficulty but that its important to have it cemented inside you that sense of self-esteem so you can suffer the preverbal slings and arrows and stay standing upright still.

Last thing to add is that it isn't about mindless persetverence. Sometimes if you keep trying the same thing over and over again you will just get the same result. A part of resilience is having the grace to realise and acknowledge when you are failing and to use that as an opportunity to try a different approach.

I would also strongly discourage 'we are not our mistakes', I would say 'we are what we learn from our mistakes'. Ime the best learning opportunities stem from a fall. I frequently let my children (and other people in my life) fail and then I support them through it so that as they get older they learn to support themselves through the hard times and always learn from their negative experiences. The life lessons that define me have come from very difficult episodes in my life. The kinds of things that are counted as disadvantages on surveys of inequality. Privilege is a mindset. Resilience is about taking what life gives you for all its worth. The phrase when life gives you lemons make lemonade cones to mind. If sonething horrible has happened to you and you haven't taken something positive from it your haven't tried hard enough. I know it sounds harsh but it's true.