INDIANA—Recently, I was listening to a podcast by psychologist Lisa Damour in which she discussed the concept of resilience. To describe this concept, she talked about playing a competitive sport or exercising (in her case, swimming). In her memorable example, she explained that when she swam meets as a teen, there was always a point in the race where she had to push herself in a way that felt uncomfortable.
She described the feeling where your body wants to give in and stop, but you keep going despite being uncomfortable. Because, realistically, we know that we can do it, and it will be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like we can. Moreover, each time you make it, the feeling of accomplishment is much better because you have pushed yourself to do something challenging. This same metaphor can be applied to many challenges in a child’s life.
As the days grow colder and shorter, and students (like most of us) likely feel somewhat unmotivated, I think a lot about this concept of resilience. We can think of resilience as the process of adapting to challenges in our lives. We can bounce back from difficult times, whether it is a death in the family or a bad grade on a math test. Difficult times will come, but resilience is about knowing that when these challenging things inevitably happen, we have the tools and skills to handle them and learn from these experiences.
Most of us see something challenging before us and avoid it because it is hard. This response makes sense in many ways–it is a natural response to an unpleasant situation or stimuli. It is an understandable and adaptive response to not wanting to do something that makes us uncomfortable. And with teens who have school, homework, extracurriculars, and chores, many things might feel awkward or challenging.
However, if we can foster resilience at school, home, and in our communities, children and teens will be more equipped to handle stressors when they arise. They will realize they can do hard things and do them well. As teens become more independent, it is important for them to learn.
We can think of resilience as a muscle that must be exercised and strengthened. However, it can also be nurtured by individuals in a child’s life. Even one adult showing love and kindness to a child can increase their resilience and internal capacity to overcome challenges. We can further strengthen this muscle of encouragement by:
- Teaching coping skills such as stress management, positive self-talk, and goal-setting
- Helping children and teens learn emotion identification and regulation through concepts like deep breathing, awareness of body sensations, and movement
- Teaching healthy thought patterns
- Encouraging and modeling good self-care
- Talking to our children and teens about the challenges that we overcame and modeling our resilience
More than just overcoming challenges, teaching resilience to our teens and children will help them become the best versions of themselves and give them the tools to succeed, no matter what path they choose.
Hannah Gill, MSW, LSW, is a Youth First Mental Health Professional at Martinsville High School in Morgan County. Youth First, Inc., is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening youth and families. Youth First provides over 100 highly trained mental health professionals (primarily master’s level social workers), prevention programs, parent engagement coordinators, and bilingual support personnel to 126 schools across 14 Indiana counties. Over 53,000 youth and families per year are served by Youth First’s school-based social work and community programs that promote mental health, prevent substance misuse, and maximize student success. To learn more about Youth First, visit youthfirstinc.org or call 812-421-8336.
