Music Growing up can be tough. So how do you help your child develop resilience? Things don't always go to plan. As adults we have skills to deal with these things. I think that we need to take a step back and specifically teach kids to be resilient. Resilience is about bouncing back in terms of problems that they might come across in life and be able to turn around, rush yourself off and start again and be able to interact effectively with their peers. Music You need to focus on child strengths rather than waiting for a problem to occur and dealing with the problem. Look at the positives all the time. An example would be that if you have a child who comes home they're feeling picked on. Rather than addressing the issue of your pick-down, let's look at the whole day. What happened in that day? What was good about the day? What are the positives that child has? You've got these friends rather than focusing on the negative issue. When we're complimenting children we need to make sure that the compliments are genuine and they're for things that they are actually good at not just trying to make things up to make them feel good about themselves. It's important you don't take children for fools in telling them every day that they're great at everything doesn't work. Kids know what they're good at and know what they've got not good at. We all have strengths, they're all in different areas. I think it's important for little people to know what they're good at and to accept what they're not so good at. Involved them in outdoor activities I think that's a really good way. They're able to socialise, extracurricular activities where they can bond with friends and different people in different contexts in different situations. I think schools are safe haven for many children. So putting them out in different environments is a really good way of developing resilience because they've had to react to different people in different ways. I think there's definitely a link between physical activity and self-esteem and confidence. By being in a team they learn how to communicate. They learn how to interact, they learn how to problem solve. And so in sporting situations all those skills get developed. I guess it's apparent that you should try and encourage a child to have a goal at everything and not put the focus on whether or not you'll be good at it but let's go and try something. You need to just teach them how to be a good person and then remind them that they are a good person. That's the most important thing. They don't have to be great at soccer, they don't have to be good at maths or reading or have all the latest gadgets. They do have to know that deep down they're a good person and that's what will give them the real confidence they need to be resilient. I think sometimes as parents we get a bit too overprotective. I think we jump in too quickly sometimes. So our children don't make mistakes and children will make mistakes. We make mistakes but we learn from those mistakes. So all the part of that resilience building isn't it? That if you do make a mistake you can laugh it off and think, okay what could I learn from that? And in next time we come across situations you might do things better. When kids not fail but when things don't work out always the way you want to. That's a learning opportunity. You can't always succeed all the time. You can't always get 100%. But that informs you on where you need to go and what you need to do to improve. So it can be a really good positive thing to always get it right. I think a big thing with resilience is that we can't make everything fair. I think sometimes parents go out of their way to make a child's day life week fair. Life isn't fair. And rather than trying to make things fair for your children it's more beneficial that you teach children how to cope with things when they're not fair. And generally for a child can accept something's not fair. That doesn't mean it's okay. But lots of things in this world happen that aren't fair. No one can change that. And as a parent we need to teach from that situation. Help our children to deal with that. And I think that's so important that we teach children values. We teach them to respect each other. Show them what it looks like. What does respect sound like when you're talking to someone else? If a child is resilient then they have a lot of self-esteem. They seem to be able to cope with any situation that comes up. So it's very good for a child to be resilient and calm. When a parent is modelling that calmness, that showing their children that they should be resilient. I think the most important thing is for parents to help build resilience in their children is to one listen to them and to make sure that if they've got problems to help them out. But when they do have problems not make bigger problems out of them. If there is a big enough problem that they need to go to the school, go and talk to them. But what they need to do is to say it's alright tomorrow is going to be okay. We'll talk about it. I'll support you. And tomorrow is a new day. Let's give it another go and be positive with them and to make sure that they're feeling comfortable with the situation. That it's not a scary thing. They can pick it up and go on with it the next day. And you'll find more information about developing your child's social skills at school.ataz.com.au