What Is Resilience?

and… what does Parenting have to do with Resilience?

Recently, as parents, caregivers and educators face major challenges in their professional and personal lives, there has been a great deal of focus on mental health services for themselves, and especially for children and youth. Moreover, education, research, policy, and general public discussion have focused on “Resilience” – described most often as “bouncing back from distressing events”.

How do individuals acquire this invaluable “Resilience”? Why is it vital for the important adults in the lives of young children to model “Resilience” themselves? And how do they create the environments and experiences so that kids develop “Resilience” as early as possible, in the mystical ages of 3-8 years- of-age? Resilient Kids Canada was founded to address those questions and, so much more!

Resilient Kids Canada recognizes that “Resilience” is anchored in the development of the following series of skills:

Social, emotional, and cognitive skills, an optimistic temperament, and a sense of agency – the feeling of control over one’s actions/behaviours and knowledge of their impacts on oneself (selfcare) and others (empathy).

Helping kids develop the skills associated with “Resilience” is what “Parenting” is all about. Parenting refers to the tasks associated with raising children. The evidence demonstrates that effective parenting has the greatest impact on the long-term health and wellbeing of children, and it is a skill learned on the job. Unfortunately, much of the public discourse about parenting features commentary, views and opinions built on the assumption that “parenting comes naturally”.

Moreover, the term seems to indicate that it is the sole role of each child’s parents to engage in parenting. In fact, parenting is anchored in the interactions between all of the important adults in the lives of young children.

Resilient Kids Canada is all about providing parents, caregivers and educators with the insights, resources, and tools they need to guide the development of resilience in young children. So, take the advice of our colleagues at The Parenting Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia that parenting is a set of skills that can be practiced, acquired, and intentionally improved.

Also, please heed the recent recommendations of the Canadian Paediatric Society to leverage the often- frequent screen time of young children into an opportunity for quality time spent with them enjoying safe, high quality on-line programs and the great outdoors to anchor in the development of skills associated with “Resilience”. And, Resilient Kids Canada is here to help!