Helping kids & teens build resilience - Part 1

Hi there fellow mums and dads,

Feels like I’ve spoken about resilience a lot lately, both at public parent education talks as well as on the radio… that’s because resilience is a hugely important skill to keep thriving (rather than just surviving) in our fast-changing world. The current environment with AI (Artificial Intelligence) progressing at an incredible speed and disrupting the status quo across almost every area of our lives, will most certainly require us and the upcoming generations to be very resilient.  

Why is resilience important?

Resilience is our ability to get back onto our feet after we fail, or when things didn’t go to plan. It’s the capacity to adapt to change in a positive way and to learn from difficult situations, making us stronger. It means being able to “Dust yourself off and get back in the saddle”.

For children and teens, such difficult experiences could range from losing a toy, not being picked for a sports team or failing an exam to much harder things like a family or relationship breakup, illness or losing a loved one.

When kids are resilient, they can overcome these challenges more easily (potentially with some help), learn that there’s a way through tough experiences, build solution-focus and confidence and get back to their normal life again fairly quickly. Resilience is fundamental for children to flourish (rather than just function) in life. It’s also a powerful skill that helps prevent or lower the risks for anxiety and depression.

Note: There are some experiences that will not make kids more resilient but seriously harm their mental, spiritual or physical wellbeing, which I’ll get to in Part 2.

Unfortunately, however, rates of anxiety and depression in children are increasing. It seems that something is eroding resilience in children.

I don’t think my child/teen is very resilient…

Whilst DNA plays a role, resilience is mostly a skill that’s built over time, so it’s not they either are or aren’t resilient – it’s never too late to work on that skill!

The only requirement to be able to become more resilient, is that a child must have a secure attachment and close connection with at least one trusted and caring parent/carer. That’s fundamental for them to develop the confidence to explore the world around them with curiosity, because they know someone has got their back if things get a bit uncomfortable.

After that, it’s difficult experiences that build resilience in kids. Seriously! Studies show that children that had no challenges in childhood have lower resilience and lower mental health levels later in life. This surprised me when I heard it - you’d think the easier and the more protected their childhood, the better!?

Turns out that children have to move outside of their comfort zone in order to develop the understanding that they can handle those situations, that their feelings might be intense but that’s OK, that it doesn’t last forever, and that they can come out the other side stronger or wiser or both.

Of course, the level of difficulty must be just enough so they can still handle it. It’s OK if they require support to manage the challenge.

Obviously, we don’t want our children exposed to experiences that are far above that level, as these would be damaging to their wellbeing and have the opposite effect.

What can I do as a parent?

So, for us parents, it’s really important to let our children experience some struggles. Of course we mean well, but it doesn’t help our children if we solve every problem FOR them (rather than WITH them), or if we prevent the difficult situation to happen in the first place. This is called overprotective parenting.

I’ve certainly been guilty of this many times, and most of us have – it’s because we love our kids and we want to keep them safe and happy! But we’re actually not setting them up for success in life this way. I’ll provide some real life examples in part 2 of this post.

How we role-model and teach resilience to our kids also has a big impact. For example, they’ll observe how you deal with and overcome a stressful experience at work, a major disappointment, the loss of a pet or loved person – you don’t have to be “perfect”, but open (age-appropriate) communication about what’s going on, about your plan on how to get through (e.g. you might try stress-reduction activities like mindfulness exercises) and what else helps you along the way (e.g. getting enough sleep, calming music, hugs, exercise, going for walks in nature, talking with partner/friends, …) etc. is very helpful for children in order to learn effective coping strategies. I personally count having a break with a cup of tea and home-made chocolate or another treat as a brilliant strategy, too  😉

Other ingredients for building resilience in kids include the usual trilogy of healthy nutrition, enough and good sleep, and being physically active.

This also applies to me as an adult, actually: if I don’t get enough sleep, I’m definitely less resilient against stress.

A few strategies for you to try:

Helping your child or teen build resilience is an important investment for their future happiness. I’ve listed a number of ways on how to teach them one of the foundations for becoming more resilient: being able to identify and name their emotions and feelings. This reduces overwhelm and helps them get back to calm more easily, as it shifts their brain from the amygdala (emotional centre; fight-flight-freeze response) to the prefrontal cortex (executive functions, like self-regulation and impulse control). The prefrontal cortex keeps developing until they’re in their early twenties, so you’re also helping this important process.

The below doesn’t only apply to young kids, but to all children and even teenagers (whose brain is undergoing some serious restructuring):

• They need to develop the vocabulary to be able express many different nuances of a feeling like sadness, anger, or disappointment. So, when you ask your child how they’re feeling, wait for them to go inside and check it out. Wait, don’t say anything and listen. Only if they can’t name it, you could make a suggestion like “you seem disappointed” and see if that resonates.

• Ask them to describe where the emotion sits and how it feels in their body. Then explore what caused or brought up this feeling.

• It’s important to reassure children and teens that all their feelings are valid and normal – and that they won’t last forever, no matter how big it all seems in that moment. This fosters self-compassion and trusting their feelings.

• Sharing your own experiences of how you felt in a  difficult situation and how you found back into balance is trust building and great role modelling.

• There are many books aimed at different ages to help you do this, but you could also play short games, like “guess my facial expression/how I’m feeling”, or “find 3 other words for feeling x”. I believe this sort of in-person face-to-face interaction is very important, especially for young kids (rather than showing them a video about it, even if it’s “educational”).

• Even just taking a couple of minutes to ask them “how do you feel?” and then truly listening and exploring together is very powerful.

I hope that this will encourage you to proactively lay those foundations for them becoming more resilient. I’ll share other strategies and examples in the second blog post about resilience, coming up soon.

If you’re unsure of how to start or if you feel concerned about your child’s or teen’s ability to cope with frustrations, please feel free to give me a call - I’m always happy to help 😊 

There’s a new FREE 20min “coaching discovery” call option on my booking page! Give me a try, there are absolutely no strings attached…

Till next time, keep in flow.

Much love,

Anke x