How To Teach Children Resilience And Hope
Learning from adversity and turning it into something that enables us to grow from it is an important foundation for being happy. This is why it is so important that you teach your children resilience and hope.
As parents, it is our responsibility to teach our children resilience and hope so that they can live happy lives.
The Webster’s Dictionary defines resilience in two ways. First of all, as “the ability of a stressed body to restore its size and shape after being deformed, particularly by pressure”. Second, as ” an ability to recover from, or easily adapt to, unhappiness or change “. Hence, resilience describes the ability that allows us to allow our experiences to make us stronger, even when they are negative.
As we said earlier, there is a very close relationship between resilience and happiness. This is because it allows us to embrace our experiences, learn from them, and turn them into something positive for the future.
If you want to know how to teach your kids healthy values like resilience and hope , just keep reading!
Teach your children resilience and hope
Unfortunately, resilience is not a skill that humans automatically possess. We are not born with this mental resilience; rather, it is a skill that we learn.
Therefore, it is vital that parents teach their children resilience and hope. This means helping them adapt and accept their experiences, learn from them and move forward.
Why is resilience so important?
Life is often compared to a roller coaster because it is full of ups and downs. Although this analogy is pretty old, it still sounds very accurate today.
Knowing how to accept the difficulties and challenges you face in your life is an important step on the way to a happy life. This is because this acceptance enables you to face adversity in the best possible way and also to learn from these experiences.
Resilience is a way of life. It allows you to be happy by transforming any situation into something new and better. And this is exactly where the great importance of resilience lies: It gives you new hope. Whatever happened, you can turn it into something positive for your life.
8 tips on how to teach your children resilience and hope
At the beginning we mentioned that resilience is not an innate ability. This is why the role of parents and children is so crucial when it comes to raising mentally resilient and hopeful children.
Here’s a look at what we can do to promote these basic traits in our little ones:
1. Be a positive role model for them
If you want to teach your children resilience and hope, the first step is to practice it yourself. Your children will grow up to be resilient and hopeful people if this is the role model you set for them.
Don’t forget that your children are constantly watching and imitating you. Therefore, you should lead by example and show them how to get the most out of each experience. Show them how you can learn and get something useful out of “negative” situations.
2. Allow your children to make mistakes
Sometimes parents tend to want to protect their children excessively, and above all to protect them. However, this is a big mistake because you are doing your children a disservice. Instead, you should give them some leeway so that they can make their own experiences and mistakes, and learn from them.
Therefore, you should give your children the space they need to make mistakes, because that’s the best way to learn from it.
3. Enable your children to face the consequences of their actions
This aspect is very closely related to the previous one. You should allow your children to make their own mistakes. In addition, you should also teach them to take responsibility for their actions.
Children need to learn that their actions also have consequences. Only in this way can they internalize social norms and learn to evaluate what is appropriate and what is inappropriate.
4. Resilience and Hope: Your children need to learn to deal with frustration too
This is a very important point. Many parents try to protect their children from all kinds of suffering. But is that really helpful for the children’s development? Is this how you help the child to adapt to life and to cope with it?
It is better to teach resilience to children based on their own experiences. Therefore, you should allow your child to experience minor setbacks. Because that is the only way he can experience and learn how to turn this situation into something positive.
5. Teach your children to think for themselves
Most parents tend to offer their children the solution to their problems. However, you should keep in mind that children need to learn to use logical reasoning to find their own solutions.
Therefore, you should let your children think for themselves and instead guide them to learn how to solve their own problems. In addition, they will be incredibly proud when they succeed in doing this!
6. Resilience and Hope: Teach your children that change is an opportunity
Sometimes the problem is the attitude you have about your problems. So it would be a great way to teach your kids that any change, no matter how negative it is, is always a new opportunity!
This is the basis for resilience: everything can be turned into something better!
7. Promote healthy self-esteem
Children who do not value themselves and who do not trust themselves will not be able to face difficulties and challenges. Therefore, another way to teach your children resilience and hope is to build self-esteem.
8. Show your children how much you love them!
Although this is the last point we make, it is also crucial. Use words, gestures, and actions to show your children how much you love them! Teach them resilience through your love. This is the best way to raise hopeful children who will later become strong, empathetic, and happy adults.
Create a safe environment so that your children can develop freely. In this way they will develop their resilience and hope and nothing and no one will bring them down.
