Many children face emotional hurts and challenges daily, such as adapting to a new classroom, new teacher, receiving hurtful words from peers or fights with siblings. 

Although being resilient does not mean that children won’t experience difficulty or distress, building resilience—the ability to adapt well to adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress—can help our children manage stress and feelings of anxiety and uncertainty.

10 tips for building resilience in children and teens

1. Make connections: Teach your child the importance of engaging and connecting with their peers, including the skill of empathy and listening to others. It’s important to build a strong family network. Be a model by sharing your experiences, feelings and thoughts.
2. Help your child by having them help others: Children can feel empowered by helping others. Engage your child in age-appropriate volunteer work or ask for assistance yourself with tasks that they can master.
3. Maintain a daily routine: Sticking to a routine can be comforting to children, especially younger children who crave structure in their lives. Work with your child to develop a routine and highlight times that are for schoolwork and play.
4. Explore thoughts and feelings: Help your child identify and validate their feelings. Teach your child how to focus on something that they can control or can act on. Help by challenging unrealistic thinking by asking them to examine the chances of the worst case scenario and what they might tell a friend who has those worries. Remind your child that no feeling is final.
5. Teach your child self-care: Teach your child the importance of basic self-care and be respectful to themselves such as making time to eat properly, exercise, and get sufficient sleep. Make sure your child has time to have fun and participate in activities they enjoy. Taking a break from news or overheard conversations will also help.
6. Move toward your goals: Teach your child to set reasonable goals and help them to move toward them one step at a time. Establishing goals will help children focus on a specific task and can help build the resilience to move forward in the face of challenges.
7. Nurture a positive self-view: Help your child remember ways they have successfully handled hardships in the past and help them understand that these past challenges help build the strength to handle future challenges. Help your child learn to trust themselves to solve problems and make appropriate decisions.
8. Keep things in perspective and maintain a hopeful outlook: Even when your child is facing very painful events, help them look at the situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Although your child may be too young to consider a long-term look on their own, help them see that there is a future beyond the current situation and that the future can be good.
9. Look for opportunities for self-discovery: Tough times are often when children learn the most about themselves. Help your child take a look at how whatever they’re facing can teach them “what am I made of.”
10. Accept change: Changes often can be scary for children and teens. Help your child see that change is part of life and new goals can replace goals that have become unattainable. It is important to examine what is going well, and to have a plan of action for what is not going well.

Read more:

https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/guide-parents-teachers

https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/behaviour/understanding-behaviour/resilience-how-to-build-it-in-children-3-8-years