When a child is armed with resilience, they have the capability to bounce back from difficult circumstances, handle a stressful situation and overcome problems - be it at home, in school or in another setting.
Parents can often feel afraid to let these issues ever happen; developing skills like resourcefulness and responsibility are key to a child’s development and can only be learnt through trial and error. With this guide from an Independent 6th Form College in London we take a look at the ways you can foster resilience in your child.
Show your child how they can be resourceful
The main way of showing your child resilience is by giving them regular problems to solve by themselves. From toddler age you can do this with toys in odd locations and ask them to go and find them. When they’re a bit older and have the capacity to think for themselves you can challenge them further by doing regular practice of homework, giving them their first chores or asking a shop assistant at the store where they can find the magazine section. They may all seem trivial but they’re great ways of encouraging your child to develop their own initiative.
Give them independence
At some point you’ll feel your child’s old enough to be left to their own devices. You might have been planning a nice evening out that doesn’t involve your children and you’ll be gone for a few hours. A good test of your child’s independence is by leaving them to look after the home for a night or even just an hour or two. Provide clear instructions at first, or test to see how they do after a couple of hours and build it up from there. It’s a great tester of how they’ll be able handle more complicated situations later on like a personal emergency or having to babysit.
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