We all want to be acknowledged by being someone who strives, whether by fostering the ability to adapt through difficult times, or being the person that encourages others in their time of need. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t want that for your child: and building resilience in childhood might just be the key to becoming this helping hand.
In fact, resilience in childhood is the foundation for a lifetime of emotional strength and adaptability. It’s about understanding that life encompasses both joy and adversity, and developing the ability to navigate through challenges with confidence.
Understanding The Meaning Of Resilience
Resilience is about seeing life as it is: there are great things about it, but we’ll all go through hard times eventually, and we need to get over them.
It’s not about pretending that life is nothing but happiness, but also knowing when to bounce back when things get tough or go wrong.
A person with a strong sense of resilience holds the necessary tools to recognize when something is wrong and they need help; or also encourages others to keep their chin up while they’re going through something challenging. And they also have the confidence that they are capable of overcoming all sorts of conflicts that life brings.
This emotional self-support is incredibly important when it comes to being a leader of the future: managing emotions from others and also yours is one of the greatest skills that are, and still be in need while our Little Ones grow and prepare themselves for their professional futures.
Bottom line is: by fostering resilience, we prepare our children to tackle life’s inevitable conflicts and emerge stronger from them.
Building Resilience In Childhood
Here’s a list of behaviors and mindsets parents need to foster in order to grow resilience in their children.
Don’t Shield Your Child Away From Problems
Dealing with life’s problems helps children develop emotional literacy. So it’s not about protecting children from the troubles that are part of life, but instead, encouraging them to find ways to handle conflicts and solve unpleasant situations on their own – instead of you showing up to fix everything for them.
See Things As They Are
This is about learning to settle your own feelings, calm down, and don’t exaggerate in front of adversity. Sometimes, when we’re too anxious, it might be hard to see a creative resolution to a problem.
But when we see the picture as it is instead of making it a bigger deal than necessary, we create conditions to have a clearer vision amongst troubling situations. Having discernment is essential and helpful as life happens and we need to respond even during stressful times.
Create An Emotional Vocabulary
We often struggle putting our finger on something troubling we’re feeling. But in order to assess the problem and handle it, we need to truly understand our feelings and define our needs.
Your response might be different if you’re upset, concerned, or frightened, and your need for help will change accordingly. Help the child build their emotional repertoire by having thoughtful conversations with them and coming up with solutions balanced with what they are feeling.
Keep A Balanced Positive Attitude
Building resilience is related to knowing that a bad situation won’t last forever, and it’s no use paying excessive attention to things we can’t solve. However, in order to go through hard situations, we have to believe that things can be OK.
And it’s exactly what resilience is about: not paralyzing even during times of struggle, and continuing to move because you believe and you know things will eventually work out. This is not to say that children can not feel sadness, anxiety, especially because these are part of their emotional vocabulary.
It’s not about building a toxic positivity environment around the child, but showing them there is often a light at the end of the tunnel.
What Children Need To Build Resilience
What kind of support do children need when they are building their way to resilience? Ultimately, nurturing resilience in children is about creating a supportive and encouraging environment where they feel safe to explore, make mistakes, and learn from them.
Strong And Trustful Relations
This will help the child learn to know how far they can go and experiment in unknown situations. It’s all about making sure your child knows they can run back to Mom or Dad if they are ever afraid, insecure, and that they’ll be taken care of. Also, when things are great, these are the people that will celebrate their victory with!
Sense Of Autonomy
Give them room for trial and error. Naturally, mistakes will happen, and the child doesn’t have to necessarily be punished by it. Let them learn with plans that go south, such as a bad result in a project or a struggle with a friend.
Show them that when things go wrong, it’s up to us to fix it, and that you have their back if they need any help.
Remember: to grow their autonomy, help them find their own solution instead of immediately giving an answer.
Grow Their Sense Of Self-Worth
Words of encouragement, celebrate their victories, be authentically concerned with what they have to say, engage in playtime. These are the things that make a child feel like they are in a safe environment and that what they have to say or feel is important.
Create this atmosphere so that your child develops self-confidence as they grow.
In-House Role Models
It’s useless to teach all these parameters and strategies if you, as a parent, don’t model them yourself.
Be kind and accepting of the feelings not only for the child you’re raising, but also of everyone that participates in your family environment. Also, be kind to yourself too during your motherhood mission.
Full Aspect Of Health
In order to develop their minds, children have to have other aspects of their life guaranteed. Keeping a balanced diet and an active lifestyle is essential to make sure their bodies are healthy and apt to work properly for children to grow!
Building resilience in children equips them with the essential tools to recognize when they need help and to support others facing difficulties. By establishing strong, trusting relationships, promoting autonomy, and being exemplary role models, parents can significantly influence their child’s ability to bounce back from adversity.
The first step to building resilience in childhood is making sure your family time nurtures children with healthy interactions. Learn the true meaning and positive takeaways from spending time with family!
