Have you ever heard of the term fall down nine times stand up ten? This phrase defines what it means to be resilient, and is an incredible skill that children develop. If your child is struggling with building resiliency and bouncing back from challenges and steps back, this is the article for you. Let’s explore a few different ways for children to build resilience, and how you can instill this incredibly valuable trait in your child.
Build a Supportive Environment
First and foremost, you will want to ensure that your child has a supportive environment to fail and make mistakes in. Reflect on your language and home environment, to see if you can make any improvements or changes as you encourage your child to take risks and have failures. What is most important is that your child feels secure enough to make these mistakes while also knowing they are loved and supported no matter what.
Teach Coping Skills
Making mistakes can be emotional for individuals of all ages! Facing challenges and setbacks can be embarrassing or cause one to want to try again. Be intentional about teaching coping skills to your child so that they do not see mistakes as failures. Instead, try to frame these circumstances as teaching mechanisms and reflect on them.
Encourage Problem-Solving Skills
When our children are young, it is common for them to come to their parents or guardians to help solve problems. Relying on others to demonstrate positive problem-solving skills is great! However, you should not always be encouraging your child to rely on you to navigate them out of trouble. Encourage problem-solving skills by empowering your child with independence, and motivating them to find solutions on their own before you intervene.
Embrace Mistakes as Ways to Learn
Mistakes are a crucial part of the learning process. They indicate that your child is trying to solve problems in new ways and find out what works best for them. As a parent or guardian, you should always be working to ensure that your child has a safe space to land after they make a mistake. this can look different for every family. Kind words, affirmations, and a bit of support on their second try are all healthy ways to cope with setbacks.
Use Optimism and Positive Thinking
Optimism and positive thinking can be game changers, especially when trying to bounce back from mistakes. As your child is learning to build resilience, change your language around trying new things and having new experiences. Frame new challenges as excellent opportunities, and ways for them to learn!
Foster Social Connection
Friendships and healthy social connections are great ways to help your child feel more confident in their journey to building resilience. Children have a friend to face new challenges with, they will be more likely to face this new adventure with confidence. If your child is struggling with building resilience, pair them up with a buddy before sending them off to try something new.
We hope this article helped you learn new tips and tricks for encouraging resilience in your child. For more helpful tips on navigating parenthood and supporting the development of your child, contact our professionals at Neurobehavioral Associates today.
