Understanding Emotional Resilience
Resilience is a psychological process of adapting to adversities, difficulties, or traumas; and rebounding back from them in a strong way. It is not about avoiding unnecessary scenarios but rather meeting them with a calm and optimistic mind. Through primary education, children can learn how to manage well the highs and lows in a more efficient way. (Zhang Q, et. al, 2020)
Providing such a friendly environment will help develop emotional resilience in primary school pupils. It involves building support relations between the student and a teacher, open communication encouragement, and providing a zone where the kids can freely share the emotions they are going through without the fear of being judged. (de Vera García & Gambarte, 2019)
Resilience in Primary School: A Matter of Emotional Health
Children’s emotional resilience is significant for primary school learners because it allows them to develop coping skills, deal with stressful situations, and maintain healthy relationships. The absence of resilience in schools can have serious outcomes that affect the students’ ability to overcome life’s challenges. To help children build resilience, educators can inculcate various skills aimed at nurturing adaptability and robustness during difficult times.
This encompasses giving learners a chance to cope with stress, self-awareness exercises for emotional regulation and self-expression as well as encouraging a mindset of growth through promoting the importance of effort and resilience over innate ability among others. This will include such things as: allowing students to bring their problem-solving activities into school employing coping skill development; fostering patience and perseverance instead of depending on natural talent; looking after yourself through reflection and speaking about your feelings; helping you out when life is tough. (de Vera García & Gambarte, 2019) Teachers can introduce these models for the students to become more capable of handling difficulties in future thereby enabling them to gain the courage necessary for becoming successful both in academics and personal lives.
Educators may help build up emotional resilience in students, by designing a safe environment, instructing on coping mechanisms, providing emotional awareness, and promoting a “growth mindset.” This goes beyond simply instructing on coping mechanisms and creating a safe environment. It encompasses a fundamental shift in how students perceive challenges and setbacks. A growth mindset encourages students to view obstacles as opportunities for growth and learning rather than insurmountable barriers. Educators can instill this mindset by teaching students that intelligence and abilities can be developed through effort and perseverance, rather than being fixed traits.
Meanwhile, through giving love, support, and encouragement and modeling positive solution-seeking behaviors parents prove to be the main people contributing to healthy emotional resilience in their kids.
Signs of Struggling Emotional Resilience in Children
A child experiencing emotional resilience issues can show a wide variety of behaviors and symptoms that need consideration and assistance. Hence, these signs allow teachers and parents to quickly identify the child’s issues and then give them a chance to use coping strategies by themselves or with the help of others. Some common signs include:
- Frequent Mood Swings:
Kids who are trying to cope with feeling resilient often seem to be displaying an anxiety of rapid and high mood or emotion. It’s quite easy for their mood to go in a swing from happiness and complacency to episodes of sadness, anger, or tension without a clear reason one can identify. (Fenwick-Smith, et. al, 2019) - Difficulty Coping with Stress:
The deterioration of emotional resilience in the child is displayed through the children’s inability to deal with the chronic stress that they inherit. They are likely to undergo mounting daily pressures which in turn might result in anxiousness, hopelessness, or avoidance of the tough cases. (Yeo, et. al, 2014) - Social Withdrawal:
Being emotionally resilient is key in every child’s development. Those who have no resilience might be afraid or even stop doing the things that they used to like. They would likely be elusive and prefer to be alone among friends or relatives, as opposed to the company of such beings. - Changes in Behavior or Academic Performance:
A below of class of behavior or academic performance can indicate an inner problem a child has with emotional resilience. Learners can be seen to pay decreased attention in class, cease being willing to learn or show up at school becoming worse, or crash their grades and acidity. (Yoleri, S. 2020) - Physical Symptoms:
Some common physical symptoms, for example, headaches, stomachache, or any other psychosomatic complaints, may occur when children are facing difficulties with resilience. These symptoms are often mirrors of your subconscious feelings such as the stress and anxiety that you have or the emotional turmoil that you face.
Being aware of these signs early will help in getting support and intervention in due time to assist children in learning the required skills and techniques that make them emotionally resilient. Through acknowledgement of these challenges, educators and parents can help children deal with life’s ups and downs with self-confidence and resilience.
Helping Primary School Children to Be Emotionally Resilient
- Teaching Coping Mechanisms
Learning coping skills allows children to deal with stress and adversity positively. This may involve teaching them relaxation techniques, for instance, diaphragm breathing or visualization, as well as problem-solving which helps to overcome challenges effectively. (Fenwick-Smith, et. al, 2019) - Encouraging Growth Mindset
Supporting a growth mindset gives pupils an understanding that they can acquire skills through application and practice. Teachers can encourage pupils to feel that they can advance and develop resilience in the face of hurdles in the workplace by emphasizing efforts rather than natural skills. - Fostering Emotional Awareness
Learning to know emotions is one of the key and main components of emotional intelligence. Educators who teach students how to identify and express their emotions give those learners the power to control and manage their emotions and ask for help when required. - Emotional Regulation
Developing resilience in primary school children is contingent on emotional regulation. This educates them to identify and control their emotions, which helps them cope when faced with problems. Such include giving names to feelings, instructing relaxation methods and imitating normal displays of emotions. This is necessary because children should be allowed to speak out freely. As such, they contribute positively towards their academic performance and ease social interactions that could be sustained throughout life. (Supervía & Robres, 2021) - Accepting Failure as a Teaching Tool is a Strategy
Developing strategies for learning from failure helps us to change the narrative about setbacks and appraise them as important experiences that enrich us. Being a normal part of failure and teaching children to realize that they should not give up easily helps them overcome challenges and succeed. - Promoting Social Connections
Forming social bonds gives a child an idea of where he/she belongs and makes that child emotionally strong. An educator achieves this by forming friendships and engendering team spirit in the children so that they can together face the difficulties of life more courageously. - Providing Positive Role Models
Having positive role models for children makes them someone they can look up to and can set an example for their future behavior. There can be a teacher, a parent, or a community leader to mention only a few who have been a role model to a child to help the child overcome the challenges of life. (Yoleri, S. 2020) - Celebrating Effort Over Outcome
Highlighting the fact that we need to reward effort and not the outcome it produces is what will bring out the value of resilience and perseverance. (Glerum, et.al., 2020) Through the recognition and appreciation of determined efforts, patience, and grit, educators inspire students to strive forward even during difficult situations.
Empowering Resilience: How InPsychful Supports Mental Wellbeing
Developing the ability of primary school champions to bounce back from their feelings is an important objective to ensure their holistic well-being and academic achievement in the future. If educators master the techniques on how to develop emotional resilience in children, then the children will be supported to conquer life issues with a sense of confidence and resilience.
At InPsychful, we realize that going through life challenges can be overwhelming, something too difficult to handle especially when one has to handle stress, anxiety, and the question of uncertainty. That’s the reason why we are here to go through the process with you. We’ll be able to give you direction and strength. Our mission is to create room for your mind to breathe, to unlock the key to defeating anxiety, and to share the light at the end of the tunnel in this overwhelming life.
We offer a secure platform where you will be able to detach objectivity from subjective judgments. What sets us apart is the professionalism of our experienced staffers who provide guidance and support to expedite the process of overcoming challenges and finding your path.
References:
Zhang Q, Zhou L, Xia J. Impact of COVID-19 on Emotional Resilience and Learning Management of Middle School Students. Med Sci Monit. 2020 Sep 1;26:e924994. doi: 10.12659/MSM.924994. PMID: 32869770; PMCID: PMC7485285.
Vicente de Vera García, M. I., & Gabari Gambarte, M. I. (2019). Relationships Between the Dimensions of Resilience and Burnout in Primary School Teachers. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 12(2), 189–196. Retrieved from https://www.iejee.com/index.php/IEJEE/article/view/914
Fenwick-Smith, A., Dahlberg, E.E. & Thompson, S.C. Systematic review of resilience-enhancing, universal, primary school-based mental health promotion programs. BMC Psychol 6, 30 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-018-0242-3
Yoleri, S. (2020). Factors Affecting Level of Children Resilience and Teachers’ Opinions about Resilience. International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, 7(3), 361-378. https://doi.org/10.21449/ijate.780247
Glerum, J., Loyens, S., Wijnia, L.,Rikers, R. 2020/11/03. The effects of praise for effort versus praise for intelligence on vocational education students. VL 40, DO 10.1080/01443410.2019.1625306. Educational Psychology
Yeo, K., Frydenberg, E.,Northam, E., & Deans, J. (2014) Coping with stress among preschool children and associations with anxiety level and controllability of situations, Australian Journal of Psychology, 66:2, 93-101, DOI: 10.1111/ajpy.12047
Usán Supervía P, Quílez Robres A. Emotional Regulation and Academic Performance in the Academic Context: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy in Secondary Education Students. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 May 26;18(11):5715. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18115715. PMID: 34073453; PMCID: PMC8198487.