Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back’ after challenges and tough times.

For children, challenges and tough times include experiences like starting at a new school or kindergarten, moving house, or welcoming a sibling into the family. They can also include serious experiences like being bullied, family breakdown, family illness or death.

Children build resilience over time through experience. You can help your child learn skills and develop resilience by having a warm, supportive relationship with them.

Resilience: why it’s good for children?

Children who are resilient can recover from setbacks and get back to living their lives more quickly. And when children overcome setbacks and problems, it builds their confidence and helps them feel more capable the next time a problem comes up.

Resilient children are often good at solving problems and learning new skills. This is because they’re more willing to try again even if things don’t go the way they want the first time.

And when things don’t go well and children feel anxious, sad, disappointed, afraid or frustrated, resilience helps them understand that these uncomfortable emotions usually don’t last forever. They can experience these emotions and know they’ll be OK before too long.

Resilient children are less likely to avoid problems or deal with them in unhealthy ways, like getting defensive or aggressive or intentionally hurting themselves. Resilient children are also likely to have better physical and mental health than children who struggle to be resilient.

Download this free guide to help build your child’s resilience:

Building blocks for Resilience