One of my favorite movies is A League of Their Own, the story of an American women’s baseball league formed during WWII. When the best player in the league decides to leave the team and tells the manager that baseball “got too hard,” he replies, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” When I think about resilience I think about that quote because resilience is what keeps us moving forward, climbing the mountain, and reaching for the stars when anything and everything else in life pushes back.
Resilience is similar to perseverance but they have their differences. Perseverance is when we keep going when we face setbacks. For a child, this might look like getting back up after falling during a soccer game or not giving up on learning how to spell a new word. Resilience is when we can recover or move forward after experiencing an adverse or even traumatic event. For a child, some of these experiences could look like changes or loss in the family, or moving to a new school.
It’s not always easy to bounce back from stress and adversity and the older we get, the more challenges we face. When we face adversity and are stressed, the brain’s stress response (fight, flight, freeze) is activated and that resilience helps us to find healthy coping strategies that mitigate this response so we can continue to move forward. It is important for kids who are overcoming trauma to have a strong support system. Child Psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry shares, “The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love.” If we help our kids understand what it means to be resilient now, perhaps we can instill habits that will help them to feel strong, brave, and confident when faced with challenges as they grow up. Use these quotes to inspire kids to think about what it means to them to be resilient.
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” - Margaret Thatcher
“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” - Nelson Mandela
“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” - Maya Angelou
“Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” - Helen Keller
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” - Thomas Edison
"If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." - Martin Luther King Jr
“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” - Confucius
“I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance.” - Lee Ann Womack
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, I’m possible!” - Audrey Hepburn
“What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.” - Simon Sinek
“You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Resilience isn’t something that always comes easy. Grief, asking for help, and changes in the family are all challenges we can face at any age. With resilience, we can use healthy coping strategies and recognize what we need in those moments when life can be overwhelming, frustrating, and difficult. The resilience worksheets in Wisdom: The World of Emotions (iOS, Android) can help your kids in these various situations reflect on their feelings when faced with difficult challenges.
