Help Children Become Resilient

According to a guide about supporting childhood resilience (found on Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child website), here are four ways caregivers and families help children develop healthy resilience:

1. facilitating supportive adult-child relationships;
2. building a sense of self-efficacy and perceived control;
3. providing opportunities to strengthen adaptive skills and self-regulatory capacities; and
4. mobilizing sources of faith, hope, and cultural traditions.

Rusty Keeler, in his beautiful new book, Adventures in Risky Play: What is Your Yes? writes a lot about helping children gain a strong sense of self-efficacy through appropriately challenging play. Keeler encourages early childhood professionals to carefully consider if and how they are providing children the gift of unstructured play. He writes:

“When play is allowed to be child-driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of interest, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue.”

Source: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/resilience/

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