Wellbeing

Building Resilience: Strategies for Overcoming Life’s Challenges

Building resilience in children helps them navigate life’s challenges with confidence and adaptability. It involves fostering emotional strength, problem-solving skills, and a positive mindset.

Some elements of building resilience include:

Strong Relationships: Supportive connections with family, friends, and trusted adults provide a secure foundation.
Emotional Regulation: Teaching children to understand and manage emotions helps them cope with stress.
Self-Efficacy: Encouraging independence and celebrating small achievements boosts confidence and a sense of control.
Positive Thinking: Helping children reframe negative thoughts and focus on solutions promotes optimism.
Problem-Solving Skills: Guiding children to break down challenges and explore potential solutions fosters critical thinking.
Self-Compassion: Teaching kindness to themselves, especially during setbacks, nurtures inner strength.

Some ways we can help to build resilience are:

Name and Understand Emotions: Help children label feelings and understand that emotions come and go.
Safe & Nurturing Environment: Build trusting connections with teachers, parents, and peers.
Encourage Connection: Promote teamwork, friendship-building, and empathy through group activities and play.
Celebrate Effort, Not Just Results: Praise perseverance and progress, not just success.
Encourage Problem-Solving: Let children try to resolve small issues themselves before stepping in.

Another way we can build resilience in our students and children is by reading them books where the main theme is resilience or overcoming a challenge and discussing it.

Some prompting questions after you have read could be:

What challenges did the characters in the story face?
How did the main character overcome their problem?
Why did they need to overcome it? Could they have given up?
Did they have any set-backs along the way?
Can you make any connections between this book and your life or situations you know of?

Below are just a few texts that are great for exploring resilience and persistence. There is also a website which can point you in the direction of many more.

https://childrenslitlove.com/2020/07/28/picture-books-to-promote-resilience/

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty & David Roberts
She Persisted Around the World: 13 Women Who Changed History by Chelsea Clinton & Alexandra Boiger
A Perfectly Messed-Up Story by Patrick McDonnell
Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev
You Are Awesome: Find Your Confidence and Dare to be Brilliant at (Almost) Anything by Matthew Syed

Children learn about resilience from watching how you and other important people in their lives respond to tough times and setbacks. When your child sees you try again, let go of anger, or think positively in difficult situations, they learn that they can do the same.

As always, I am available via the office or Compass if you have any questions or would like to chat with me about anything wellbeing related. You can also email me at louise.jarvis@education.vic.gov.au.

Have a lovely weekend,

Louise Jarvis