I was changing my daughters nappy on the change table and seeing that she prefers to be a wriggly worm right at that moment, I grabbed the closest toy which happened to be a doll with buttons. Upon pressing the buttons, the doll sings or counts, repeats the alphabet and says some quirky tunes.
-
Jump To
My daughter hadn’t played with it much, seeing she was too little previously, so I didn’t really know what this doll does or says in its entirety. She started pressing the buttons and after a few tunes the dolls starts speaking some lines in a happy and cheery voice,
“Your my best friend, let’s go play!”, “I love playing with you!” These lyrics made me stop for a minute and got me thinking and toys and their commentary. It made me realise that toys like this doll can help with the well-being of a child positively. I mean, it’s sweet to feel wanted and appreciated and there is nothing wrong with that at all.
But then I thought about all the other toys children play with and how these positive quotes early on are a great thing to hear, but as children start going to preschool or primary school, is this setting them up to unrealistic expectations to how friendships actually work?
Now I’m not saying what the doll is saying or other toys that are similar are saying is wrong, but it just made me really consider how important it is to teach children about when somebody doesn’t want to play with you or doesn’t want to be your best friend.
It reminds me of when I was in kindergarten, I remember this memory quite clearly. I didn’t know anybody, like most kindergartens. It wasn’t like today where schools engage in icebreaker activities or events where the students get to meet before starting school. It was more of a ‘fend for yourself’ type attitude to starting schooling at that stage (early 90s).
There happened to be three girls standing together who knew each other. I took up the courage to ask one of the girls “can I be your friend?’ To which she said “I need to ask my best friends first”.
I saw her walk away back to her group and huddle together to discuss wether I could ‘be their friend’. Quite funny now that I think of it! I just remembered thinking at the time ‘what if they say no? What will I do?’ The anticipation was nerving! Then the girl came over with the group and said happily “they said you can be our friend”. In this case I got a positive response, but there could be times in your child’s life that people just don’t want to play with you or be your friends.
I think it ultimately comes down to the importance of teaching children from a young age about resilience. Sometimes resilience can be something some children tend to have naturally depending on environmental factors (parents are resilient or a sibling) or from their personality type. But even in these cases, resilience is a very important skill to have!
What Exactly is Resilience?
So what exactly is resilience? Resilience is how quickly you recover from something difficult or challenging in relation to life events. Resilience doesn’t have to be based on relationships in the playground, but also difficult situations that occur in life. So in simple terms, resilience is how quickly you can bounce back from certain situations. It is all about learning from failures, coping strategies and a different mindset.
Why is Resilience for Kids Important?
Resilience is an important skill to learn as it allows your child to ‘bounce back’ and recover quicker from adverse situations and get on with their lives. Children with a lack of resilience find it more difficult to move on from challenges which can impact their mindset and well-being. The whole idea is to develop a positive mindset and learn how to feel more capable in overcoming adversity or challenges when a future issue arises.
A Focus on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Development
A way to develop positive mindsets and over coming these challenges is to focus on the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) of children. This refers to learning values and skills that help children relate to others and contribute positively to their environment. Children who develop these skills are more likely to be able to manage their feelings and emotions better, relate to others, make better decisions, resolve conflicts and have a more positive outlook towards themselves and their world.
To develop good social and emotional skills, you need to take in account how a child mind develops. Young children have an egocentric perspective, meaning it is always about ‘them’. The older they get, the more reasoning develops where they can understand things from other peoples points of view. Fostering safe and trustworthy environments for a child enables them to feel this way about the world around them. This all helps in building children’s resilience in the long run.
Going back to young children’s perspectives, imagine this scenario. It is class sports day and it’s time to pick teams. Tensions are high as students ultimately have two objectives, that they will be picked at the start, showing they are skilled or liked the most by their team members or that they don’t want to be picked last.
Kids start being selected based on skills, friendships and likes and the others fall short.. how would that child being pick last ultimately feel? I know you are probably thinking, ‘yeah but someone has to get chosen last don’t they?’ Yes, this is true, but some kids getting chosen last can be the worse case scenario.
Children who may have acceptance that they may not necessarily have the sport skill or the care for the sport will not be phased or effected by being chosen last, but others will take it personally. ‘They don’t like me’, ‘I’m not good at sports’, ‘I’m not good at anything’, ‘I thought they were my friend’, ‘It’s because I am quiet they didn’t chose me’, ‘Maybe I’m ugly, too fat’, ‘Maybe they think others are better than me’ and the list goes on..
These are things that can start playing in a child’s head when they find it difficult to bounce back from difficult situations. And look, it’s very hard, how do you teach a child to be resilient? To not care about not being chosen first or being chosen last?
Strategies for Resilience for Educators..Is it doing more harm than good?
This is only one example of an event that could occur in a child’s life that could cause some children to become withdrawn or upset. For educators this can be a growing issue, however, there are a range of strategies that educators can use to minimise these thoughts in children for the example above.
Some strategies in this case could be, for the teacher to randomly choose teams or children pick a coloured tokens or numbers from a bag. This is all well and can improve a child’s wellbeing, but is it just covering up the chance for a child to learn to become resilient? It definitely is a catch 22 in this case. Instant gratification for wellbeing or having a challenging scenario and possibly learning from it in the long run?
There will be many times in life, when these children become adults that they may encounter challenging situations. They didn’t get the job, they didn’t get a pay rise, they had a disgruntled customer at work, a pet passes away, they failed an assignment, they didn’t get a turn on the swing at a busy park (that one was for children, but hey some adults may be upset about this too hahaha!).
But what about situations when an adult or teacher is not present? Will your child be resilient in these situations? The best way to prepare a child for arising challenges is to teach them resilience.
Ways you can teach your child resilience
- Forming strong relationships around trust and safety
- Teaching your child confidence
- Getting children to learn from their adversities by experiencing them. Support your child through it but don’t solve it for them. Allow them to tell you how they feel about a situation rather than fixing it for them
- Avoid preventing problems for your child
- Help your child manage and identify strong emotions by explaining how they are feeling
- Building encouragement, telling your child to have another go
- Self compassion
- Teaching self reflection, reflecting that they are doing well
- Sit down and brainstorm with your child how they can respond to something challenging in the future
- Finding good and supportive role models (family, school or community based).
I have listed some websites below that can give you more information about the importance of resilience and mental health for your reference,
Please also take in consideration that these ideas are researched from reputable sources and that if you are having any issues with your child’s development or social and emotional development or issues with the mental health of your child, please see a trained medical professional who can offer medical assistance and support.
What do you think about resilience for children? Are there any points I may not have mentioned that important to add? How have you dealt with a challenging situation or how have you supported your child in gaining resilience through issues? Jot them down in the comments section below!
Want to read more of our blogs? Check this one out – Out-of-Area Enrolment Rejected? 12 Helpful Strategies to Help your Child who just Missed Out
