Building Resilience in Children During Uncertain Times

In addition to keeping children safe during COVID-19, it is also important to take care of their emotional health. One way to encourage positive emotional health, is to promote resilience. Resilience involves the capacity to master and accept painful feelings. It is the ability to adapt well to adversity, tragedy, trauma, threats, or significant sources of stress.

According to Lynn Lyon, LICSW, a psychotherapist who specializes in treating anxious families and co-author of the book Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children with Anxiety (which by the way is an AWESOME read), “When they step into a situation, resilient kids have a sense they can figure out what they need to do and can handle what is thrown at them with a sense of confidence,”

As parents, you may be wondering how in the world do I help my child become more resilient during this incredibly challenging time of uncertainty? The good news is that resiliency can be learned.

Here are 10 tips to get your started: (for more details regarding each tips, check out the following link: 10 Tips for Raising Resilient Kids

1. Don’t accommodate every need.

2. Avoid eliminating all risk.

3. Teach your child how to problem solve.

4. Teach your child concrete skills.

5. Avoid asking “Why” questions, but rather “How” questions.

6. Don’t provide all the answers (definitely a hard one for me!).

7. Avoid talking in catastrophic terms.

8. Let your kids make mistakes (let me repeat...let your kids make mistakes!).

9. Help them manage their emotions.

10. Model resilience.

Check out some of these fun games and activities that you can do at home to start building resilience today:

Building Resilience in Children Using Fun Games

Sesame Stress Resilience Tool Kit

Resilience Games and Activities for Kids and Adults

Big Life Journal Resilience Activities

Free Resilience Worksheets

Bounce Back Parenting

As a reminder, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, Leah Molloy, school counselor, at L.molloy@stbs.org, if you have questions and/or concerns about your child’s social/emotional well-being.