Nurture Resilience

Children will have different levels
of resilience and different ways of
responding to and recovering from
stressful times. They will also have
different ways of showing when the
demands that are being put upon
them outweigh their capacity to
cope. They might become emotional,
withdrawn, defiant, angry or
resentful and even the most resilient
of children have days where it all
gets too much, but low resilience
will likely drive certain patterns of
behaviour more often. The great
news is that resilience is something
that can be nurtured in all children.

Problem Solve

Encourage children to persevere
through things they are finding
difficult. Only then can they form
habits that will help them handle
future adversity. For example,
when something goes wrong with a
friendship or an issue with schoolwork
ask them how they think they could
improve the situation instead of
jumping in with the solution.

Home Environment

The single most important factor
to develop resilience in children is
at least one stable and nurturing
relationship with a supportive parent,
caregiver, or any other adult. These
relationships build key capacities
such as the ability to plan, monitor,
and regulate behaviour. Such
capacity enables children to respond
adaptively to adversity and thrive.

Emotions

Helping children manage their
emotions is important for the development
of children’s self-regulation skills,
resilience, sense of self, and in nurturing their
mental health and wellbeing. Parents have an
important role to play in supporting
children to manage their emotions.
One of the most important things you
can do to help children understand
emotions are to talk about them.

Resilient Parent

Be a role model. Children are very
good at copying what they see in
their parents behaviour. Act with
compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness,
and gentleness, children will be more
likely to follow the example.