The Seven C's of Resilience

Resilience is our ability to bounce back, undefeated, from challenging and stressful situations.  We all face many challenges during our lives (and in my life, at least, challenges seem to come in clusters).  Our children are dealing with divorce, job insecurity, illness and death in the extended family, moving to new schools, and a myriad of other stressful situations.  We can't shield them from many of these situations - but we can give them coping skills and the ability to move on. 
Alyson Sklar, an education consultant, says that according to The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), there are seven C's of resilience.  If you're interested in reading the entire article from the Toronto Star, click here.  Otherwise, here's her quick outline:

Competence Everyone needs to have something they’re good at, which is why competence is the first pillar of resilience. “It could be anything from helping your baby brother to stop crying or being good at playing hockey,” says Sklar. Parents can help cultivate competence by letting little kids get dressed on their own, for instance, and by spending time on the activities that children truly enjoy and can master.


Confidence The next step is having confidence in one's abilities. It’s not enough just to be good at something; you have to get a chance to prove to yourself what you can do. For Sklar’s oldest daughter, that meant being allowed to take her little sister to the playground at the end of the street. For others, it could be having the opportunity to work out a problem with a friend before Mom or Dad swoops in.


Connection Close ties to family, friends, school and community provide kids with an important sense of security and shared values. Those go a long way down the road to reduce the chance that kids will seek choices that are self-destructive, says Sklar.


Character A fundamental sense of right and wrong helps children make wise choices, contribute to the world and become stable adults. Teaching your kids about character can start young with the lessons from storybooks and progress from there, says Sklar. Being kind to an animal, making sure no one feels left out on the playground and speaking up when a friend’s being bullied are all good opportunities demonstrate character.


Contribution Children who have the opportunity to make a connection between their actions and the betterment of others are more likely to make altruistic choices. Plus, the sense of purpose that brings is like money in the bank kids can draw upon in harder times. Your child doesn’t need to start his own charitable foundation, but could you work together to collect some canned goods this year? Or have your child select a toy for a toy drive?


Coping Let’s be real. Adult life throws us all kinds of hurdles from everyday annoyances like flat tires to big life events like the loss of a parent. Children who learn to problem solve and manage stress will be better prepared to face these on their own. Here’s the rub – kids can’t learn coping skills unless we demonstrate some at home. So if we lose our cool when the plumber is late, for instance, our kids will be sure to bring the histrionics when Luke’s lightsaber goes AWOL. The good news is that kids are perfectly willing to accept that none of us are perfect. What’s more, knowing how to acknowledge mistakes and start fresh is a decent coping skill itself.


Control It’s important to teach kids impulse control, because they don’t often arrive on this earth with a keen sense of delayed gratification. Think of the famous marshmallow experiment in the 1960s, says Sklar. Hundreds of 4-year-olds were offered one marshmallow now or two marshmallows if they could wait a few minutes. The kids who could wait for the bigger pay off did better in school, attended better universities and were considered more dependable by parents and teachers. So how do you bring these lessons into everyday life? Teach your kids to try some deep breaths when they’re frustrated. Set a maximum amount of TV time and let them decide whether or not to save a half hour for their favourite show. “When they realize they are in control of their own decision making, they’re more likely to make the right decisions down the road,” says Sklar.

Much of the work we do in kindergarten is geared toward developing self-regulation (a.k.a. impulse control) and resilience in our children.  We give them opportunities to identify and resolve problems independently, to develop close friendships with their classmates, and to deal with frustration in a positive matter.  At this age our children are still discovering their skills, interests and connections to the world.  The independent play and exploration that occurs in kindergarten helps form the patterns of behaviour that allow a child to persevere in the face of setbacks and disappointments.  We can't build a bubble around our children - but we can give them the tools to weather the storms that life tosses at them.

The importance of play-based learning

A few weeks ago I took my son to CHEO for an appointment with a specialist.  The waiting room was stuffed with children and parents.  I would have expected a certain amount of ambient noise in such a setting, but the room was eerily quiet.  With only one exception, the parents were tapping away on their laptops and cell phones.  When the children tried to interact with their parents, the parents only lifted their gazes briefly from the flickering screens.  This left the children to either watch The Wiggles or to do some colouring.  One very young child, who was still developing his fine motor skills, tried to show his father his picture.  His father looked over his laptop and told his small son to start over again - and this time to colour evenly and inside the lines.

There is evidence that as toys in Canada become more digital and less mechanical, and as art becomes perceived as colouring inside the lines rather than creating one's own drawing, they present an obstacle to a child's intellectual and motor development.  According to McLean's magazine in the article "Why Your Teen Can't Use a Hammer, "Occupational therapist Stacy Kramer, clinical director at Toronto’s Hand Skills for Children, offers one explanation for what’s happening. It begins with babies who don’t get put on the ground as much, which means less crawling, less hand development. Then comes the litany of push-button toy gadgets, which don’t exercise the whole hand. That leads to difficulty developing skills that require a more intricate coordination between the hand and brain, like holding a pencil or using scissors, which kindergarten teachers complain more students can’t do. “We see 13-year-olds who can’t do up buttons or tie laces,” she says. “Parents just avoid it by buying Velcro and T-shirts.” Items that—not incidentally—chimpanzees could put on." 

Most of the social and problem-solving skills we master are developed and honed through early play.  A play-based kindergarten classroom offers rich opportunities to improve fine motor skills, solve problems, and develop social skills.  Children frequently return to the same books, games, or equipment again and again as they master particular concepts.  They need to create and activate their own games and imaginative play as part of their development.  Adults can introduce games and activities, but children must have a certain amount of free choice and free play to have opportunities to develop and to construct their own meaning. 

Perhaps the best demonstration of this comes from an afternoon in early November.  I had put out a variety of 3-D shapes in different areas of the classroom.  As an afterthought, I put out some hula hoops for the children to sort their shapes before sitting down to read with a child.  When I returned to the hula hoops, the children had discovered that they could make spheres roll around the perimeter of the hoops, tight against the inner wall.  They were now deeply engrossed in discovering what other solids could perform the same behaviour.  On their own terms, they were building a far deeper understanding of the properties of shapes than would have been the case if I had simply made them follow a set of rules.

If you ever feel guilty about a messy, toy-strewn house (which was certainly my case when my children were young), you may enjoy the article Bringing Imagination Back, which looks at how parents and teachers are restoring play and play-based learning to the lives of children.  In the meantime, when your children come home and can't wait to tell you about something they did during playtime - they're also telling you, if you "read between the lines", what they learned today and how they built on what they learned yesterday.  Step by step, block tower by block tower, their minds and skills are developing as they make sense of the world around them.