How to develop resilience in children and adults

Sometimes we wonder how those people who seem to have everything against them cope, how they are able to make the best of the worst situations and move on. We may also need some keys to overcome adversity in the same way. In order to overcome the difficulties of life, it is necessary to work on a concept that in psychology we call resilience.

This ability can be cultivated from a young age and continue to develop in all stages of our life. In this Psychology-Online article, we will give the best tips to know how to build resilience in children and adults.

Index

1. Resilience: definition
2. How to develop resilience in children
3. How to cultivate resilience in adults
4. Phrases and reflections to develop resilience

The word resilience comes from Latin resileIt meant jumping back, bouncing. We use this term in psychology to refer to the ability to overcome life's setbacks. Being resilient does not mean that nothing affects us, it means that we are able to adapt better to situations and problems that the world presents us. Most of us show resilience in different episodes of our life, we could say that it is our way of adapting to difficulties.

However, sometimes problems seem to stifle us and it is very difficult to overcome them. At such times, we must train our psychological resilience with a series of steps and keys. These steps are based on accept the changes, search new opportunities and learn from all experiences, training resilience also involves doing exercises to learn to be more positive.

If we fully train our ability to overcome adversity from a young age, we will become much more resilient people over the years. We can build resilience in children with the following steps:

• Build strong bonds with the child: attachment It is very important in resilience training, it shows us that we are not alone and that other people can help us in our bad times. As adults, we can provide security and protection for the little one through displays of attachment and affection.
• Teach him to accept changes: When we are young, we must learn that not everything depends on our decisions, there are things that we cannot control and that is not bad. Change is part of our life and we must accept it as soon as possible, in this way, we will avoid frustrations in the future.
• Resolve doubts you may have: a child with concerns will ask us about everything that surrounds them, if not doubts are adequately resolved, they can cause concern and anxiety about what a stranger.
• Teach him to cultivate friendships: In the same way that attachment in the family strengthens resilience, learning to have good personal relationships helps the child to establish a better social network of support. In addition, the child will feel accepted by her peers and protected in other unfamiliar environments.
• Encourage him in his goals: It is possible that the little one has concerns and begins to develop individual projects (start drawing, doing crafts, learning a new sport ...). It is very important that we help you to pursue your goal. You may not get everything right the first time, but it is important that you learn to be persistent and not abandon your dreams despite the first frustrations.
• Let him make small decisions like choosing what to wear the next day or what book to read next. Teaching him or her that he or she has the power to change small things will mean that in the future they will have tools to modify what is in their hands and, thus, better adapt to changes.

If throughout our lives we have not trained our resilience, nothing happens. We still have time to cultivate the ability to overcome life's problems. This time, we will base the advice on conflict resolution and accepting parts of our past that still torture us.

• Accept reality: As we have mentioned in the keys to developing resilience in children, accept that there are events that we cannot control, helps us overcome frustrations and move forward more easily, focusing our attention on what we can change.
• Cultivate your circle of friends: Supportive social networks are an important pillar in the training of psychological resilience, feeling ourselves Accompanied and loved, it fosters our self-esteem and is another tool to solve the problems of the day a day. Otherwise, feeling alone encourages problems like the Depression or a bad self-image.
• Know yourself: knowing more about ourselves helps us to better solve problems. In this way, we know how we can act in the best way, looking for our strengths and our weakest points.
• Manage your social skills: Learning to relate not only strengthens our circle of friends, it also helps us to talk with conflictive people and avoid arguments with them. In addition, knowing how to communicate helps other people to respect and take into account our needs.
• Take care of your needs: loving yourself and putting yourself first is not selfish. Self-care is a key piece in the promotion of resilience, in this way, we also take care of our self-esteem and are more prepared to face everything that may come to us.
• Learn from the past: We don't always make the best decisions in life, but instead of torturing our minds and remain anchored in those mistakes, we can learn from them and let them be part of our experience.

Throughout history, many thinkers have written about resilience or, if not more, about our psychological strengths. Next, we will show some of the most famous phrases to develop resilience:

• Always remember that you are greater than your circumstances, you are more than anything that can happen to you. - Anthony Robbins
• The greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we fall. - Confucius
• The world breaks everyone, and then some are strong in the broken places.- Ernest Hemingway
• Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything rotates, everything flies and disappears. - Frida Khalo
• Each "tick-tock" is a second of life that passes, flees, and is not repeated. And there is so much intensity in it, so much interest, that the problem is just knowing how to live it - Frida Khalo
• He who has a reason to live, can bear almost any how. - Friedrich Nietzsche
• When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the plane takes off against the wind, not against it. - Henry Ford
• Every adversity, every failure, every anguish, carries with it the seed of equal or greater benefit. - Napoleon Hill
• In three words I can summarize everything I have learned about life: Keep going. - Robert Frost
• There is no such thing as "ruining your life." Life is very resilient, it comes out of everything. - Sophie Kinsella
• If it is not in your hands to change a situation that causes you pain, you can always choose the attitude with which you face that suffering.- Viktor Frankl
• Falling down is allowed, getting up is mandatory. - Winston Churchill

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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