What is Resilience? The ability to recover quickly from difficult situations. Why would we talk about this topic, regarding young children, you might ask. Because young children go through more situations that require resilience than you might realize.
Situations that Require Resilience:
Dealing with a lost friendship
Starting a new school/ moving to a different room in daycare
Moving to a new neighbourhood/ house
Dealing with divorce/ loss of a family member or pet
How to Build Resilience:
Instead of fixing the problem, ask questions that allow the child to think it through themselves.
Embrace your own failures and talk to your child about them, so they can learn from you.
Label emotions (yours and theirs) and encourage your child to do the same. Remind them that these feelings will pass and explain how to self regulate.
Exercise outdoors
Look for the bright side of situations.
Children see and hear a lot more than we often realize: if we model the behaviours we want them to do, then they will pick it up from us very quickly. Don’t be afraid to look silly while explaining things to an infant or a toddler; children need to be talked to and reasoned with to learn how to behave in all kinds of situations.
