A scary global trend, particularly in western countries is the severe decline in the resilience of children.
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, challenges, threats, or significant sources of stress such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or behavioural and academic stressors at school. It means “bouncing back” from difficult experiences. Although a playwork approach supports the development of resilience among many other positive social and emotional traits, unless these are supported across the board results can fall short.
Low resilience in children can often be identified when they:
• Often give up too easily
• Lack initiative
• Deal with failure badly
• Blame others when things go wrong
• Want you to solve their problems
• Fear failure or consequences, so use avoidance strategies
• Overtly negative perception to stimulus
• Strong external locus of control
We would like to share some strategies and open-ended questions that have worked to promote resilience while still being able to weigh in as a parent or educator:
1. Nurture Optimism: This seems so obvious, but we often see parents/carers fall into the mood of an upset child. Truth be told I have seen children become infinitely more anxious/distressed because they are mirroring their parent’s reaction. Obviously, children see their parents as a person worth modeling and if that is the default behaviour it becomes the go to. As a person working with children, it is very easy in the case of a meltdown, injury, or irate parent to feel stressed, even angry, but it is very important to remain at face value calm for the children’s sake. This face value effort does translate to real confidence as we master it.
Questions to support: If a child has had an average day, especially caused by another child, instead of deeply delving into the “bad” ask about what might have gone right during the day and if that comes up with naught ask what might be done to ensure a better result tomorrow. Once again, I know this seems simple when laid out like that but, as a well-meaning caregiver or parent it is very hard to remove the desire to dig into the negative.
2. Model Resiliency: When children see obvious anxiety and distress on parents or other adult’s faces when they share their story, they immediately feel irrevocably validated that they were right to be fearful, anxious, or distressed themselves. Now “maybe” they were right to feel this way, at least a little anyway… But often these situations are complex being based more on an unconscious assumption, perception, or even straight-up false information.
Questions to support: In a confident but caring way phrase the possible other perceptions that may have led to a situation. Not only does this help build empathy but also executive function as it demonstrates to the children that there are often more ways to look at a situation than theirs. What you are hoping to achieve here is not necessarily undermining a child’s point of view at all, but rather understanding why someone else was or can be, for lack of a better word, annoying. Sometimes understanding these things alleviates half the worry that surrounds it.
3. Nurture A Growth Mindset: This just refers to not getting bogged down in negativity. Today might have been bad, but tomorrow doesn’t need to be. Reinforce that. This works for the antagonist as well. Reassuring a child that the other person can change can alleviate the hopelessness of believing they will always be subject to whatever the negative behaviour may be.
Questions to support: Remove the negative and focus on what could be done the next day. Maybe even bring the other party into the conversation, what could be done to help them be happier (most bullying/antagonizing behaviour is a result of frustration or anxiety after all). This once again supports empathy and a long-term solution.
4. Help them build their problem-solving toolbox: This is great for conversational reasons and empowerment.
• What would [someone who they see as capable] do?: This could be as “actual” as another playworker or yourself or as random and arbitrary as Wonder Woman or Super Man!
• What has worked before?: Most children have most certainly demonstrated the ability to overcome some challenges thus far so these experiences should help their future interactions.
• Say as many ideas as you can in two minutes, even the silly ones? Lay them on me. Go!: This can make a bit of fun out of an average situation and nurture that supportive light side of the situation.
• How can we break this big problem into little pieces?: Slices are easier to deal with. These everyday strategies have been highly successful in our play spaces and we hope they may help other children expand their emotional capabilities in other arenas.
Angus Gorrie