How to Raise Resilient Kids

We all have good days and not-so-great ones. It's during those tough days that being resilient is most helpful. But what is resilience? How do we cultivate it? And more importantly, how do we, as parents, play a crucial role in teaching this essential skill to our children so they can handle anything that comes their way? As a psychologist, I often hear these concerns from parents during therapy sessions. There isn't just one answer, but there are many strategies you can use to improve your child's resilience.

So, what exactly is resilience?

Resilience is our ability to bounce back from difficulties. It’s a learned skill that helps us face obstacles head-on and withstand the negative emotions that follow when we fail. Resilience has many benefits, as resilient children are more likely to adapt to stress, handle change positively, and recover from setbacks more easily. This positive outlook is further enhanced by having a growth mindset, a concept that was first introduced by psychologist Carol Dweck, who focused her research on motivation (Dweck, 2006).

But what is a growth mindset?

A growth mindset is the belief that we can enhance and refine our abilities through effort and dedication. It's the opposite of a fixed mindset, which assumes our abilities are set and don't improve with practice. You might have encountered these terms in your child's school, where they're often taught to encourage resilience and a love for learning. They're also prevalent in training programs, like those for the Navy SEALS. A study on Navy SEALS training found a strong correlation between trainees with a growth mindset and successful completion of their rigorous training (Smith, Young, & Crum, 2020).

When we, as parents, teach children and teens about the concept of a growth mindset and help them exercise this skill, they are more likely to become resilient and view challenges as opportunities. Two studies illustrate this well—one showed a significant reduction in anxiety and depression in children and teens who exhibited a growth mindset during a two-year period (Lai et al., 2022). Another showed that children during the COVID-19 pandemic who exhibited a growth mindset had better coping strategies for stress and demonstrated greater resilience (Frontiers in Psychology, 2020).

If you need further convincing, consider sports legends like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, who utilized growth mindset principles to become the athletic legends we know them to be.

Steps to fostering a growth mindset in your child.

1. It Starts with You: When teaching children a new skill, it is best to demonstrate examples continuously in a show-and-tell manner. Modeling growth mindset reactions to challenging or adverse situations is a strategy that can help children learn how to handle difficulties. Children often imitate the behavior they see in adults. If adults consistently exhibit characteristics associated with a growth mindset, children have an increased chance of adopting that mindset themselves. An article from Harvard's School of Education explored the link between a parent's and child's mindsets and found that parents with a growth mindset were more likely to impart that skill to their children (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2017).
2. Praise Effort, Not Just Results: One of the best ways to help our children develop a growth mindset is by praising the effort they put into any given task versus praising the results of the task they completed. When we praise the results, we communicate that regardless of the effort involved in a task, the results are the only significant measure of success. When we praise the effort, the results do not matter, do they? Most of us are guilty of praising our children’s intelligence when they complete a task, and we forget to mention that they put significant work into completing it. Dweck discussed this in her work and mentioned how praising innate abilities can have the counter effect of demotivating children from trying harder when the going gets tough (Dweck, 1998). So next time you think of telling Tommy, “You are so smart! Look what you did!”—think again.
3. Encouraging Problem-Solving: Problem-solving is a crucial skill that contributes to developing a growth mindset. Why is this important? When children are able to work through the steps of problem-solving, they feel more capable of handling challenging situations and are less likely to give up when faced with obstacles (also known as resilience!). Problem-solving may be challenging to teach, but starting at a young age can significantly impact a child's ability to overcome failure and effectively manage the emotions associated with difficult challenges.

   Research suggests that the best way to teach problem-solving is to focus on the following steps: observe and define the problem, brainstorm solutions, evaluate the options, and reflect on the outcomes (Stanford Report, 2023). These steps can be adapted and utilized by children of any age. For example, with a 5-year-old, you might define the problem as "It seems that you are having trouble finding where the blue square block goes." Then, you can brainstorm solutions by asking, "What do you think we should try?" Next, you can evaluate the helpfulness of each suggestion together with your child, and once you try the best options, you can assess the outcome.

4. Embrace Mistakes as Learning Opportunities: Everyone makes mistakes, and we often try to teach this fact to our children as they navigate their daily lives. Unfortunately, our verbal message is often at odds with our behavior. Our society is not very forgiving of mistakes, and this gives the impression to our children that making mistakes is something to be feared. This can lead children to give up on tasks they perceive as too difficult. One way to help children view mistakes differently is to change how we respond to their mistakes. For example, if our child misses a free throw shot during an important basketball game, we can reframe this experience by offering a different perspective (McCaslin, Vriesema, & Burggraf, 2016). We can say something like, “You gave it your best shot, and even though you didn’t make it, we now have some new information. I can help you master this skill so we can learn and improve together”.
5. Set Achievable Goals: Setting achievable goals can also be beneficial, as it can lead children to experience success more often, motivating them to continue trying new activities and moving the goalpost to the next goal. This, along with breaking tasks into smaller steps, can increase feelings of accomplishment. One helpful way to do this is using the SMART goals acronym, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Conclusion

Raising resilient kids is not easy. It involves teaching a number of other skills to our children so they can master the art of “getting up and trying again.” From modeling the behavior for them to teaching them how to problem solve, reframing mistakes, and helping them set small achievable goals, this is a complex process. Resilience is a skill that builds over time, and our ability to be resilient often depends on our dedication to practicing the related skills mentioned in this post. Focusing on building one skill at a time incrementally builds your child’s resilience over time. It takes patience, but practice and a relentless attitude will help your child reach the ultimate goal of becoming the resilient adults you always hoped for them to be.