Building Resilience

Many families face stressful situations, including parental depression or other mental illness, serious medical illness, community violence, and poverty. Adversities like these can be painful for the children in these families. But research on children facing such problems has shown that many of these young people show resilience and do surprisingly well.

In this brief, the authors explain how resilience can be recognized and fostered at four levels: the individual, the family, the school and caregiving systems, and the larger community. They also suggest ways that parents can build their child’s resilience on a daily basis by teaching self-care, emphasizing the positive, building a strong parent-child bond, reading together, encouraging social skills, maintaining a daily routine, nurturing self-esteem, and practicing reflection.