Resilience : Bouncing Back

It has been almost 4 months since #lockdown due to #COVID-19 been around, and its impact is being felt by all of us. Our children are aware of what’s happening around and are most likely experiencing range of different #emotions and #feelings.

These emotions can range from

• #Fear of going out,
• #Worry about not been able to attend #school
• #Sadness of not meeting their #friends
• #Stress of “what if “- any #family member falls sick
• #Loss of #joy — the loss of the things that brought them joy — going to the park, dance classes, family outing on a Sunday, playdates and many more
• #Confused when they see their parents stressed

How can we help them navigate through this incredibly challenging time?

Resilience is “one’s ability to cope with ups and down and to bounce back from the challenges we experience”.

Why is it important for children?

Making children resilient is not only important for helping them to deal with day-to-day difficulties, but also in developing the habit that will help them to deal with challenges later in life. Resilience is basic skill which can be learnt, developed, and strengthened at any age.

Research shows, the children with greater resilience are better at managing stress, anxiety, and depression. Children can be confident and independent only when they are allowed to overcome challenges on their own. Jumping in to help each time when your child is facing a challenge will never build his or her confidence. No parents can completely protect and shield their child from challenges and hardships. If we encourage and allow our children to take small decisions such as choosing a sport in school, choosing between two outfits to wear etc, then we will not only help them to develop confidence but also provide a sense of responsibility and independence too.

Building resilience is important in many ways:

• Boosts Confidence
• Makes them independent
• Overcomes stress
• Makes them a responsible human

But how can we build resilience among children:

1. Talk to them about

– Mindfulness

Mindfulness is basic human ability to be fully present and fully engaged in the present with whatever we are doing at the moment. It is about being aware of where we are and what we are doing. Mindfulness is about creating an awareness of each of our senses & experiencing each moment by focusing on “What can your smell, hear, taste, feel, & see now?” It’s about controlling your mind from jumping either forward to “what-if” or backward to “I can’t believe that happened”.

– Self-care

Talking to your children about the benefits of eating healthy, exercising daily, and most importantly loving and accepting yourself the way you are. We need to share the importance of sleeping on time, practicing muscle relaxation exercise, yoga and deep breath.

– Good things happening around the world

Let’s break the bad news cycle and resist our negativity bias!

Take a moment to look at the bright side!

Talk about the good things that are happening around the world such as:

• How Scientists and Doctors are working hard to find a vaccine for COVID-19
• How front line workers are working selflessly in such difficult times to serve the rest of humanity
• How countries are coming together to help each other in this fight against COVID-19
• How organizations, cities, and countries are scrapping single-use plastic

2. Let them experience failure or disappointment

Do we know anybody who has learnt walking without falling even once? Babies also fall many times before they stand on their feet. As parents we should allow our children to experience disappointment; this doesn’t mean that we ignore their disappointment. We as parents need to help our children learn to cope with disappointment. Give them support and assurance that we are always there with them in joy and sadness. This will help them realize that disappointment also passes away and they learn that sadness doesn’t last forever!

There is an awesome movie “Inside Out” which describes the internal world of a child and speaks of the importance of acknowledging and facing sadness, rather than running away from it.

3. Allow them to show their feeling

Let children be allowed to show their feelings they are going through; never teach them to hide their feelings. We should always encourage them to talk about how they are feeling now.

A beautiful art activity “Feeling Faces” is to have your child draw out the various emotions such as what does A happy face look like to them? A sad face? A grumpy face? A confused face? An angry face?

Let them draw and write out the emotion underneath the face. Allow them to either show by picking up the “feeling face” to how they are feeling at the moment or talk about their feeling.

4. Seeing parent model Positive behaviour

Children do what they see; They mimic their parents’ every move. Some often take little more time to observe and process information before they attempt something, but end result is that they imitate every move of their parents’. So its extremely important for us to model positive behaviour, accepting our mistakes, learning from them while encouraging children to do the same.

People who respond to hardships with resilience live longer, are healthier, are happier in their relationships whether its personal or professional and are confident to explore their world!

The great news is that anyone can learn the skills that result in resilience.

Don’t forget that family acts as a security blanket for children. As a family we need to ensure that children receive lots of love and support. Therefore, to summarize, it is important as parents, teachers, grown ups, & families to ensure that we model positive behaviour, embraces our own mistakes.breeds a culture that helps our children to learn from their mistakes, , label our emotions and feelings, & that we seek help we require.

#parenting #teachers #resilience #mistakes #learning #lifelonglearners #educators #parents #stress #children