Building resilience in your children is so important. In the latest episode of Motherboard, our panel discuss different ways to build resilience in your child.
Success is something everyone strives to have in life.
Whatever success looks like to you, there will be twists and turns in reaching your end goal. To achieve success, you need to have the resilience to bounce back after you get knocked down.
As you can imagine, resilience is an important attribute to instil in children from a young age. The earlier a child develops resilience, the better they will strive throughout their life.
In the latest episode of Motherboard, our panel discusses the best approaches to building resilient kids.
Our panel consists of our resident midwife and host Avril Flynn, Love, Life & Little Ones Blogger Laura Doyle, Creator of Dublin City Mum Avril White and Principal of St.Oliver Plunkett's School Malahide, Claire O'Connor.
Check out some of their top tips to build resilient kids below.
Some tips on how to build resilient kids.
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Don't Overprotect
As much as we want to wrap our children in cotton wool and shower them with hugs and kisses daily, unfortunately, this doesn't do much for helping them develop independence and resilience.
As much as it can go against your natural maternal instinct, you need to allow your children some form of independence suitable for their age.
Whether you let your child walk to your car after school rather than meeting them at the school gate or you allow them to ride their bike to their friend's house nearby.
![Child on a bicycle]()
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Teach Problem Solving
If your child is going through a difficult time, it can be natural to jump to the rescue straight away. However, children are generally able to adapt quite quickly to stressful situations, if we allow them to be in one.
Problem-solving is an essential skill to build resilience in children and one they will take with them into adulthood.
Allowing your child to solve conflicts themselves with peers and siblings (within reason!) or offering them a choice between two dinner options, will build resilience within your child. -
Let Children Make Mistakes
These days it's common for parents to shelter their little ones from failing and making mistakes. By doing this, parents aren't letting their children experience failure, which is detrimental to building resilience.
By allowing your child to make mistakes and fail, whether it be with their maths homework or coming seventh place in the school race, they will learn from these experiences and come back stronger going forward. -
Avoid 'Why' and ask 'How'
'Why' can suggest blame when you ask this question of your child. By simply changing the question to 'How' your child will be allowed to think about the question at hand.
For example, instead of asking your child 'Why did you leave a mess everywhere?', you could ask 'How would you feel if I made a mess in your room?'.
You are then allowing your child to empathise with you and think about the implications of their actions.![Big brother helping little sister]()
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Name Emotions
Teaching your child to name their emotions is essential in building resilience.
By encouraging your little ones to talk about their feelings and recognising which emotion they are experiencing, your child will gain the power to realise that the world isn't collapsing each time they become anxious or upset, and they will be able to better navigate through it themselves.
Motherboard is a podcast created by mothers for mothers. Listen to previous Motherboard podcasts & subscribe now.
