During my studies as a Kids Life Coach and indeed subsequent studies in Children and Young People's Mental Health, I've discovered that building resilience in children is paramount to their mental health.
Resilience put simply is the ability to process and adapt to difficult or challenging life experiences, through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment accordingly to external and internal demands.
As children grow older and become more independent they experience many more challenges in their daily lives and while some simply handle whatever life throws at them, others struggle to bounce back and as a result can suffer from lack of confidence and low self-esteem.
Resilient children demonstrate a genuine interest in school, are assertive and able to show initiative, are empathetic toward others, are reliable and trustworthy, set realistic and attainable goals and maintain a positive outlook on life. They also have healthy mechanisms for dealing with set backs and challenges, such as self-care, talking about their problems, talking positively about themselves and their future.
Children who are less resilient, dwell on problems, become overwhelmed by situations, have a victim mentality (why does everything happen to me), have a negative outlook and could develop unhealthy coping mechanises, such as substance abuse, eating disorders or risky behaviour. If your child has no resilience it might show up as, being emotional, withdrawing, becoming detached, defiant, angry or resentful.
Girls in particular, as they reach the preteen and teens years may find it more difficult to build on their resilience, this can be for a variety of reasons, such as attributing failures to intrinsic factors and success to extrinsic factors, so basically, feeling that what's on the outside is what makes them successful, if they look good then they will be successful, if the don't they won't.
Girls blame themselves more than boys, and they take less credit for their successes than boys. As their bodies go through physical changes, their boy counterparts get louder, bigger and stronger and girls can lose their voices. Physical changes are even more challenging for girls nowadays with the advent of social media, filters that promote perfection and impossible standards of beauty that no girl can reach (nor should they), they may also be objectified by boys and feel the need to change so that boys desire them, all of this can result in lower levels of confidence and self-esteem which are key factors in building resilience.
As a parent, having a strong relationship with your daughters is key and discussing factors openly like, for example, what they see on TV or on Social Media and explaining to them that these messages are destructive and false and they should not use what they see in the media as a benchmark for how their live needs to be in order to be liked.
Dr Ginsburg a human development expert and child paediatrician outlines 7 components to resilience:
Competence
Confidence
Coping
Connection
Character
Contribution
Control
You can help your child with build resilience through these 7 components, in the following ways:
Competence - let them make mistakes, avoid jumping in to fix things. Mistakes are where they learn their greatest lessons. Solving problems and working out what to do for themselves is what builds resilience. Instead ask them how they doing, remind them you are there to help if they need you, encourage them by reminding them they can do it on their own, help them brainstorm solutions.
Confidence - help build your child's confidence by letting them do things on their own, even if they don't do it the way you would, let them accomplish tasks independently. When we don't let them do things in their own way, they may start to believe that they aren't good enough, so won't even bother trying next time. Provide support along the way, but avoid telling them 'the right way' to do something. Let them have boundaries, teach them that it's OK to say no, as long as we aren't being rude. Teenager struggle with confidence because their brains are changing, so the more they understand about their brains the more confident they will feel about what is actually going on, they will know that it doesn't define them as a person.
Coping - teaching coping strategies when the child is calm is the perfect way to build resilience. Teens can feel disappointed and devastated when things go wrong and don't think straight at the time, so feel unable to cope, so the more they regularly practice coping skills the more natural they will come when 'disaster' strikes. Coping strategies could include, conscious deep breathing, read a good book, talk to trust adult or friend, plan a fun activity, write down your thoughts, exercise, do some yoga or watch something funny.
Connection - let them talk! It's so easy as a parent to talk over your kids, to try and offer solutions and advice when they come to you, but most of the time, they just simply want to off load, as much as it might be difficult to understand, they simply don't need your feedback or advice (unless they specifically ask for it), so just listen. It's also important to encourage independence, allowing them to go out with their friends (unsupervised), helps them to build bonds with their friends and forge greater connections, which teaches them how to handle future relationships.
Character - by talking about current events, this helps your child to analyse if their values align with the world in which they live. If something concerning is going on in the world, like war or pandemics, allow them to express their views and discuss their argument, this helps build their character. Helping them manage stressful situations also helps build character. When they have a difficult situation to get through they often have to dig deep and work through it, this digging deeper build character.
Contribution - there is no doubt about it, doing things for other people, whether it be volunteering, random acts of kindness or just being appreciate of what is builds a stronger self of self and as a result build resilience. Having your child contribute in decisions made as a family also gives them ownership over decisions and fosters responsibility. I recently handed over the decision of what meals we have each week to my 12 year old daughter, she downloaded the app and she picks which 3 meals we order for our Gousto, this is one of her contributions to our family, as well as helping to make one of the meals per week, which also covers connection, competence and confidence attributes of building resilience.
Control - knowing what you are in charge of and what you are not is fundamental to building resilience. Things that are out of our control, we cannot do anything about, we can only focus on what we can do something about and that is our behaviour, effort, mistakes, asking for help, who our friends are, and taking care of ourselves. We cannot control what others say or think, being sick, the weather and previous mistakes. It's important to praise children specifically for things they can control such as their effort, rather than their ability. Making an effort and trying harder each time is what builds resilience, being naturally gifted at something doesn't. Helping them set goals and strategies for reaching those goals helps them feel more in control, something we teach in our sessions.
If your child is facing a particular challenges in their life right now, get them to ask themselves the following questions:
- How can I get back on track?
- I know I can’t control everything, so what can I control?
- Is there anything I can change to make things better?
- What lesson can I learn from this?
- Who can help me?
- What can I do to move forward?
As a Kids Life Coach, we teach children the tools for handling life's challenges, these tools need to be taught explicitly and practiced regularly in order to be effective. If you feel that your daughter would benefit more from having one to one coaching in a safe and non judgemental environment, to help build her resilience, then please feel to contact me, I would be more than happy to coach her.
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