Resilience is one of those skills that all kids need and should have. It refers to their ability to cope and adapt in situations when confronted with challenges such as adversity, trauma, tragedy, or even stress. At school, students with resilience are better able to take risks with their learning, cope when things don’t quite go to plan and solve social problems with their peers. Covid-19 has meant children have had to bounce back from a lot this year - changes to routine, home learning, not being able to do sport or other extra-curricular activities and possible uncertainty and change in the family. We can build resilience by helping our children to know how to cope with change and uncertainty, manage disappointment, learn from difficulty and persist with challenges and help them manage the emotional challenges they experience every day. Resilience is essential to one’s wellbeing and mental health and is a skill that can be learned from an early age through the support of an adult role model.

Being resilient does not mean your child won't experience any difficulties, rather that they will better equip them to manage challenging situations. Dr Michael Carr-Greg explains that “we need to allow our kids to experience adversity. There is a tendency to shield our kids because parents have become a bit over-protective”. While protecting our children from challenging situations or experiences of failure is a natural instinct for parents, experiencing failure is all part of the process. Encouraging children to take healthy risks will help them trust their capacity to deal with uncomfortable situations and increase their capacity for courage.

In this edition of SchoolTV, parents will gain an understanding of how to support their child’s brave behaviour to help them adapt and build resilience. Below is a link to the Resilience edition of SchoolTV that has more information for parents on resilience and how to support this in their students. https://stsebastiansyeronga.qld.schooltv.me/ newsletter/resilience

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