Resilience

[Rememory]

How do you teach resilience?

What age group? I'd recommend sending them out to play if under 10. Not enough outdoor playing! All being linked to a lot of issues including lack of resilience

Adopt a brisk and cheerful 'no big deal' attitude to the things that go wrong in day to day life - forgotten homework, being told off by a teacher, etc. Obviously, you'd take a different approach to serious things like bullying.

Encourage them (assuming we're talking school age children) to come up with solutions and strategies in advance - e.g. the bus home is cancelled, do you wait for the next one, get another bus that drops you a bit further away from home, and walk from there, or what.

Set an example of generally being positive rather than negative about life.

Basically, encourage a mindset that things will go wrong sometimes, but they can deal with things, that the world won't end if something goes wrong.

And try to ensure they're getting enough sleep and ecercise, as lack of those can have a major impact on mood.

Don't be, or encourage them to be, like some posters on MN who are permanently 'fuming' or 'livid' about things.

Thank you. So how do you protect them from bullying?

I'm not an expert but if you can teach them not to care too much about what other people think of them that has got to help.
Bullying only works if the victims cares what the bully thinks. But I suspect bullies try to find insecure people who are easy targets.

Live by example- show them how to deal with something going wrong. Eg : you burn dinner so wash pan and start again. You don't shout or cry.

Role play : eg Practice what to say if people are mean.

Talk about problems: eg x comments on the contents of your lunch every day. Is there a way to deal with it yourself rather than relying on teachers?

Practice life skills: If you are confident and independent, you might be calmer about things. Eg fell in the mud but you know that washing machine will sort it out so you pop it in machine when you get home. No biggie.

This is an interesting thread, I'd love to hear more ideas.

I think it's partly nature and partly nurture, but encouraging independence as early as possible is also important.

The only way to be resilient to low level bullying is to have high self esteem. Kids need to believe they have high worth in order to shrug off insults.

More concerted bullying however will wear down self esteem.

Really interesting points.

I've had such a shit week and feel like a crap mother and just wondered where I'd gone wrong. So please forgive me for asking and not elaborating. I just need to know ...

Regarding bullying... DD does a number of things outside of school with different groups of friends. I hope that by having a mix of groups, if the friendships go a bit wonky in one, she'll still have the friends in the other, so it won't feel like her whole network is gone. Obviously won't stop the effects of sustained bullying but a small step.

I ask my pupils to consider that they will never be 100% unless they are a particularly gifted mathematician. That they should congratulate themselves on the % they HAVE achieved rather than that which they missed.

That once it’s done, it’s done. Whatever that might be. That tomorrow really is another day.

That the concept of ‘enough’ is good. As long as they have done ‘enough’ in terms of work or effort, that’s a good thing.

Good resilience comes from good attachment. Make sure your attachment is solid. Then move to teaching independence. "you can do it", "I'll help you", "we'll do it together", "that's it". "well done", "try again", "Do you want me to show you again?" etc (age dependent of course). Owning mistakes "silly mummy" etc. Model the behaviour. Importantly, model asking for and receiving support.

Social stories.

I ordered this from amazon. My son isn't autistic but it's been really helpful to us.

Competitive sport and losing but still having another go. My DD has lost in competition many a time or come last but has a few tears feels abit crap thinks about it /processes it then says “can I try /go again” she amazes me with her resilience sometimes!
Bully or gossiping issues with school girls I’ve tried to teach her to rise above it, walk away, not look bothered, cultivate other friends (hence way we do sporting clubs outside the school friendship group) it’s not easy but she’s navigating it slowly. We got a couple of books for example “The smart girls guide to friendships” which helped her. Now she’s just started secondary school and friendships are starting to jiggle around again but her sports are really helping her to stay positive.

The other thing was talking about what’s happened in the day and acknowledging you cannot change how someone behaves you can only influence or change your own reaction to it. That gives you power to how you feel, so working on lots of positive thinking.