How To Develop Resilience In Children And Adults

The word resilience comes from Latin respite, meant to jump back, bounce. We use this term in psychology to refer to the ability to overcome life’s setbacks Being resilient does not mean that nothing affects us, it means that we are able to adapt better to the situations and problems that the world presents to us.

Most people show resilience in different episodes of our lives; we could say that it is our way of adapting to difficulties. Even so, sometimes problems seem to drown us and it is very difficult to overcome them.

In those moments, we must train our psychological resilience with a series of steps and keys. These steps are based on accept the changes look for new opportunities and learning from all experiences, training resilience also involves doing exercises to learn to be more positive.

If we train our ability to overcome adversity to the maximum from a young age, we will become much more resilient people as the years go by. We can foster resilience in children with the following steps:

• Establish strong bonds with the boy or girl: Attachment is very important in resilience training, it shows us that we are not alone and that other people can help us in our bad times. As adults, we can provide security and protection to the child through displays of attachment and affection.
• Teach him to accept changes: When we are little, we must learn that not everything depends on our decisions, there are things that we cannot control and that is not bad. Change is part of our lives and we must accept it as soon as possible, in this way, we will avoid frustrations in the future. In this article you will see how to learn to accept reality.
• Resolve doubts it can have: A boy or girl with concerns is going to ask us about everything that surrounds them; if their doubts are not adequately resolved, they can cause worry and anxiety about the unknown.
• Teach him to cultivate friendships: In the same way that attachment in the family strengthens resilience, learning to have good personal relationships helps the child establish a better social support network. In addition, the child will feel accepted by his or her peers and protected in other non-familial environments.
• Encourage him in his goals: it is possible that the little one has concerns and begins to develop individual projects (start drawing, do crafts, learn a new sport…). It is very important that we help him pursue his goal. He may not get everything right the first time, but it is important that he learns to be persistent and not give up on his dreams despite the first frustrations.
• Let him make small decisions: For example, let him choose what clothes he is going to wear the next day or what book he wants to read next. Teaching him or her that he or she has the power to change small things will make him or her have tools in the future to modify what is in his or her hands and, thus, better adapt to changes.

If throughout our lives we have not trained our resilience, nothing happens. We still have time to cultivate the ability to overcome life’s problems. This time, we will base the advice on conflict resolution and accepting parts of our past that still torture us.

• Accept reality: As we have mentioned in the keys to developing resilience in children, accepting that there are events that we cannot control helps us overcome frustrations and move forward more easily, focusing our attention on what we can change.
• Cultivate your circle of friends: Social support networks are an important pillar in training psychological resilience, feeling accompanied and loved boosts our self-esteem and is another tool for solving day-to-day problems. Otherwise, feeling alone encourages problems such as depression or a poor self-image.
• Know yourself: Knowing more about ourselves helps us solve problems better. In this way, we know how we can act in the best way, looking for our strengths and our weakest points.
• Manage your social skills: Learning to relate not only strengthens our circle of friends, it also helps us talk to conflictive people and avoid arguments with them. Furthermore, knowing how to communicate helps other people respect and take our needs into account.
• Take care of your needs: loving and putting yourself as a priority is not selfish. Self-care is a key piece in promoting resilience, in this way, we also take care of our self-esteem and are more prepared to face everything that may come to us.
• Learn from the past: We don’t always make the best decisions in life, but instead of torturing our minds and remaining stuck in those mistakes, we can learn from them and let them be part of our experience.

If you know more about how to work on resilience in adults, we recommend reading the book Resilience: How do I get up after falling? In this book, the renowned psychologist Marisa Salanova invites you to understand in depth what resilience is what are the psychosocial factors that facilitate its development and the enormous potential that it can bring to our lives.

Throughout history, many thinkers have written about resilience or, if not, about our psychological strengths. Next, we will show some of the most famous phrases to develop resilience:

• Always remember that you are bigger than your circumstances, you are more than anything that can happen to you. -Anthony Robbins
• The greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we fall. – Confucius
• The world breaks everyone, and then some are strong in the broken places.- Ernest Hemingway
• Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything spins, everything flies and disappears. – Frida Khalo
• Each “tick-tock” is a second of life that passes, flees, and is not repeated. And there is so much intensity in it, so much interest, that the problem is just knowing how to live it – Frida Khalo
• He who has a reason to live can endure almost any how. – Friedrich Nietzsche
• When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the plane takes off against the wind, not with it. -Henry Ford
• Every adversity, every failure, every anguish, carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. – Napoleon Hill
• In three words I can summarize everything I have learned about life: Continue forward. -Robert Frost
• There is no such thing as “ruining your life.” Life is very resilient, it comes out of everything. -Sophie Kinsella
• If it is not in your hands to change a situation that causes you pain, you can always choose the attitude with which you face that suffering. – Viktor Frankl
• Falling is allowed, getting up is mandatory. -Winston Churchill

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to develop resilience in children and adults we recommend that you enter our Personal Growth and Self-Help category.