How do you raise a resilient child?

It’s an important question. We all know that life is full of challenges, setbacks and disappointments, and it’s resilience that helps us to bounce back from failure, adapt, regulate emotions, problem-solve, show empathy and integrity, and form healthy, happy relationships.

Resilience also helps us to stay the course, acquire new skills and grow in optimism and confidence. Research shows that it is influenced by our : some of us are innately more resilient, while others are more sensitive and reactive to their environments and experiences. We also know that a positive, supportive, stable parent-child relationship is the most important influential factor in determining resilience.

The good news is it can be nurtured and grown, and that parents and caregivers have a huge influence and impact on how resilient children will become. The consistent, reliable parental presence that helps our children feel safe and secure, understood, and accepted for who they are provides the building blocks and helps our children acquire the key skills they need to flourish and thrive. Regardless of how resilient our children may be now, with the help of compassionate supportive adults in their lives they can learn the skills at any age to bolster and strengthen their resilience.

Here are five ways we can help:

Get curious and help your child feel seen

Building resilience starts with knowing your child. Think of it as a continuum. It’s not good or bad – it’s just where they are now. How sensitive and reactive are they? How susceptible are they to stress and being overwhelmed? How deeply do they feel things? We want to step into their shoes and find out how the world feels to them. We’re then in a place to give them support, compassion and understanding as we adjust our parenting approach to meet their needs. It’s likely that each of your children experiences the world in a different way. To help them be their best, we want to give them the unique support they need. Even your seemingly resilient child may feel more sensitive to certain situations and experiences.

One of your children skips happily into their new dance class without even looking round to say goodbye. The other, although they were excited at home, now wants you to wait, and is hesitant and uncertain. This child needs your support to build their resilience in a way that the other may not. You might decide this week to wait and let her watch with you. You might talk through with her later how she felt, validating her feelings before problem-solving and brainstorming some ideas to help her build her confidence for the next class. We want to get curious and meet our children where they are now. When we step into their world, they feel understood, deeply connected and supported – all of which builds their internal strength and confidence.

Be an emotion coach to build emotional intelligence and resilience

Resilience is about learning as we grow how to regulate and manage our difficult emotions (anger, frustration, jealousy, sadness) in a healthy and constructive way. This takes time and practice, and with our help our children can learn to tolerate distressing and difficult emotions. When we accept without judgement rather than trying to dismiss or deny how they feel, we send the message that all emotions, no matter how uncomfortable, are OK. Some behaviours naturally need to be redirected, but only after we have calmly acknowledged the feelings and connected with our child to help them feel safe.

We can start by acknowledging and validating our children’s feelings. It sounds like this:

‘This is tough. It’s so frustrating when it takes so long to learn.’

‘I can see how angry you are. That’s so disappointing not to get picked for this match.’

‘I bet you wish it was your birthday! Me too.’

‘New things can feel overwhelming. It’s ok to take your time.’

When we label emotions, we build children’s emotional awareness and their vocabulary. There is no judgement or shame – we’re just calmly suggesting how they might be feeling, which sends the message that we’re interested, we understand and we’re here to help, no matter how tough and uncomfortable their emotions might feel. When our children experience – repeatedly – that emotions, including big ones such as fear, anxiety, jealousy and anger, are manageable with our help; that they can cope; and that we ALL experience big feelings, they are better prepared to take on whatever comes their way, show empathy to others and build emotional intelligence.

Our calm, non-judgmental presence sends the message that they’re safe and builds and reinforces our relationship.

Support your child’s ability to problem-solve

One of the keys to building resilience is a confidence in our ability to meet challenges, adapt to change and solve problems – and it’s a vital skill that we can teach our children. Our tendency – because we love them – is to rescue, fix and solve their problems. If we want our children to be good problem-solvers, we need to let them practise in a safe space. We can teach them to brainstorm with us, break problems into smaller steps and talk through different scenarios. Problem-solving teaches flexibility and adaptability as we help our children consider different solutions and the consequences of those solutions.

After we have connected, acknowledged and validated the emotions, and when everyone is calm, we can help them problem-solve. It might sound like this:

‘Yesterday morning didn’t go well for any of us. What do you think we could do to improve things?’

Being honest and willing to revisit and problem-solve WITH our kids when things don’t go well is good teaching and good modelling. Perhaps your daughter had a hard time remembering the morning routine – she was late, and you ended up shouting. No blame or judgement are needed, but rather humbly and respectfully working together to come up with a practical solution. With a brainstorm, she might decide to get all her things ready the night before. You might discover that she was distracted and feeling anxious about her presentation and talk through calming techniques to help her cope. Our calm, supportive approach teaches our children that problems and mistakes are part of life. It shows them how to recover from failure and how to make amends, when to ask for help and collaboratively find solutions – all of which nurtures their resilience. It will also teach them that, when it all feels too much or too complicated, they can always ask for help.

Mastery can be a game-changer

Supporting our children to step outside their comfort zone, try new things, set goals and learn new skills can help nurture resilience. Helping them find a passion for which they’re motivated to try hard, try again when they fail and experience the joy of accomplishment helps meet their needs for independence, control, autonomy and success. It may be learning to skateboard, play the guitar, use a new move in football or build a difficult Lego model. Whatever your child loves, mastery creates a sense of purpose and direction. The more we can support healthy activities that involve interacting face to face and balance their time on screens, the better.

Mastery will feel and look different for each of our children. We’ll need to tune in and decide what help and support they need to take the next step. There can be a fine balance between building confidence through competence and moving too far too fast. Remember that child in the ballet class: mastery might be joining the class, overcoming her fears and being in the line-up of dancers for the big show. For her sibling, it might be learning the routine and taking on the solo at the front of the stage. Both of these children have reached their goals and are building resilience in their own unique way.

To improve and master new skills, children learn to manage setbacks and problem-solve – and we’re beside them all the way. Our support, both practical and as emotion coaches, gives them the security and stability that’s key to their confidence to keep trying. The process of mastery gives us the opportunity to celebrate the tiny wins, the progress along the way and the strategies and attitudes that our children employ, all of which reinforces perseverance and builds their tenacity, a and resilience.

Keep working on the relationships

The foundation of resilience is reliable, stable, positive relationships with presence and love. Face-to-face human interaction and building positive relationships is the key to healthy development and wellbeing. The more we can nurture these in-person relationships in our children’s lives, with teachers, coaches, family members and friends, the better supported our children will feel.

We will always be our children’s most important presence. Parenting is 80 per cent modelling, and we want our children to see us as positive role models for resilience: embracing challenges, finding healthy strategies to cope with stress, problem-solving, stepping outside our comfort zone, finding joy in mastering new skills, being and revelling in our relationships. We want our kids to absorb our empathy, optimism and courage. This always includes talking about our feelings and emotions (in age-appropriate ways).

Resilience is vital as it permeates every aspect of our lives, from giving us the confidence to have tough conversations and make difficult decisions to having the self-control to fight back against algorithms and taking on tough challenges, knowing we can manage the disappointment if we fail. Resilience helps us learn and grow.

Parenting is not about grand gestures or perfection, it’s about being present and doing what we can to tune into each child’s unique needs. The basis for resilience is knowing that someone delights in you, has your back, is there for you in the toughest moments, can tolerate all your emotions, sees you for who you are and can calmly set limits that help you learn. And all this is the key to helping your children thrive.

Heather is a parenting expert and founder of . She works with parents one-to-one, runs workshops and gives talks on a range of parenting topics. For more information please contact heather@theparentingpartnership.com

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How do you raise a resilient child?

TE Schools Advice