How to Raise a Resilient Child

To be resilient means to be strong, tough, and robust. Most parents want their child to have an inner resilience because life is easier if you’re able to take a few knocks with bravery, humour and good grace.

The challenges faced by our children change as they grow – smaller children are obviously facing different issues to older, but it’s important to remember that it’s all relative. This girls’ prep school in London believes in challenging the pupils as much as possible in order to encourage sensitivity and resilience in equal measure.

For the pre-schooler, it’s small things such as being able to cope when they are left with a babysitter or in a childcare setting. Managing small injuries bravely and coping in new situations and environments. For older children, things become trickier. 

As your child navigates through their school years they may come up against such things as unkindness, peer-group pressure, bullying, academic failure and even anxiety.

To equip your child with the tools they need to grow into strong and resilient teenagers, you need to arm them with coping systems which will help them to process and manage any difficulties they come up against.

We can’t wrap them in cotton wool

As much as we’d sometimes like to, we can’t overprotect our children if we have their best interests at heart. We must encourage them to take part in new and exciting adventures as often as possible.

Resilience can be taught from a very early age. A small child who falls and hurts themselves can be encouraged to dust themselves off and move on quite easily if the hurt is not too bad.

Rather than crying out in horror if your child falls, try to wait for their reaction first. Small children take their cues from us – if your child thinks there’s something to be horrified about, then they will of course react in horror to a grazed knee. If you can see the hurt was minor, resist the temptation to rush to their side but rather say “Whoops! Are you ok?” in a cheerful voice. As you help them, tell them how brave they are.

Similarly, any unfortunate incidents at school in later years can be dealt with lightly. Imagine your child is upset because they weren’t chosen for the school football team. Your reaction will teach them how to deal with future disappointments. Rather than outrage on their behalf, simply express your sympathy and then advise them to practice harder – “You’ll be so good by next year that they’ll be begging you to join!”

The more your child hears about ‘trying again’ or ‘learning from our mistakes’, then the more resilience they will have in future.

This is a collaborative post.