FAMILY CORNER

Supporting children’s resilience

What does resilience mean for children? Here are some ideas for supporting your child as they develop wellbeing and resilience skills

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Recent years have seen an increase in the number of primary school children being referred to mental health services. Here, we explore some skills that children will need to develop robust mental health to help them cope with whatever the future throws at them….

1 Healthy relationships
All behaviours occur for a reason and are a form of communication which can be defined as “any response or action that can be seen, heard or felt”. Unwanted behaviours can occur for a variety of reasons and are usually a child’s way of communicating their current needs and feelings to us.

2 Managing feeling and emotion
Being able to use thinking and coping skills, rather than impulsively reacting to emotion and feeling is a key skill that serves us well throughout our lives – it also helps foster healthy relationships. Having these skills also helps with decision making and taking positive action.

3 Communication
Being able to communicate well with others is so very important throughout our lives. This includes listening and problem-solving skills, such as working in a team. It also includes having the vocabulary to be able to express thoughts and feelings clearly to others.

4 Confidence and self-esteem
Being self-confident and having a positive self-image is critical if a person is to be able to confront and manage conflict, stress, fear, worry and anxiety in life. Again, these skills also help decision-making and taking positive action when needed.

5 Flexibility
This is an important part of resilience building. It is the ability and openness to try new things, to be able to adapt and problem-solve when things aren’t quite right. It is flexibility both of action and of thinking and is a skill that serves us well as adults.

6 Positivity
Being a glass half full person, seeing the positive instead of concentrating of the negative of events and situations is a great life skill. It includes practising gratitude for all we have, instead of focusing on what we don’t have. Optimists are also more likely to see good and bad events occurring in their life as being temporary rather than permanent and they are less likely to blame themselves or someone else for the hard times.

7 Self-care
Most of us are aware of how important this is. Self-care isn’t just about being able to shower and dress oneself. It also incorporates other factors such as keeping fit and keeping healthy. A sound knowledge and skills around healthy eating, cooking skills, regular exercise are important. Along with this go other important aspects of life – such as being able to manage money.

8 Empathy
Empathy is a complex skill and includes many factors. As well as being able to listen to others and be able to pick up on non-verbal communication, such as body language. Empathy also means being able to show sensitivity and understand others’ perspectives. Children who possess these skills are more able to help other people based on their understanding of those people’s needs and feelings.

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For more tips and advice for families visit familycorner.co.uk.