Children’s Understanding of Resilience
“Why do we stop in the middle, if our intention at the start is to finish?” (Year 5 Child)
Have you ever started something and then given up? What was your reason for not finishing? Did you return to that task again? Perhaps stopping was the right thing to do in the moment and showed strength of mind.
Any response you give to these questions is valid, and more importantly personal to you.
The concepts that frame our mental health and emotional wellbeing are incredibly complex. Take the concept of resilience, illustrated at the start of this blog and framed by a Year 5 child’s question. What resilience means to each of us will vary depending upon our life experiences, our emotional connection to that experience, and our ability to make sense of it within a meaningful context.
Resilience does not stand alone from other equally complex concepts of mental health. For example, resilience is likely to be impacted upon my own perception of self (self-worth), the value I place on the experience in relation to my wider life goals (hope and optimism), the support systems I have around me (relationships) and what is important to me in taking care of myself (self-care).
At stormbreak, we understand resilience is about developing inner strength and courage. It’s about growing our ability to keep trying and to ‘bounce back’ from difficult situations’.
If resilience is well understood, we would want a child to:
- recognise that there are things we can't control and that everyone faces difficulties in their lives
- be able to endure disappointment and frustration and to be able to persevere
- use problem-solving skills and communicate when things feel difficult or hard
- to be able to recognise, respond and regulate.
- to develop an inner strength and courage
- to be able to seek help sometimes
- to be able to maintain an optimistic attitude and positive mindset
During the summer term of 2024, we spent some time in school talking to Year 5 children about resilience. Using an approach called Philosophy for Children (P4C), children were invited to take part in a shared, collaborative community of enquiry about what resilience means to them.
| Philosophy for Children (P4C) is a pedagogical approach practised worldwide. It was developed by Matthew Lipman in the late 1960s, and is characterised by children coming together as a community (typically sat within a circle) to collaborate in their search for meaning and understanding (Golding, 2015). In P4C, children are encouraged to question, think, reason and make connections between philosophical concepts and their own experiences (Murris, 2000). The process of the enquiry encourages practical philosophising through group dialogue, created from a question posed by the enquirers that is provoked by a stimulus (Fisher, 2013). |
The resilience enquiry began with the stormbreak Cross Country Challenge; a fun and inclusive activity where children go on a seated cross country run overcoming a series of imaginary obstacles.
Our lives are much like going on a run. Lots of twists and turns and obstacles that might get in the way along our journey. A run can have moments of challenge and fun. It can be predictable or unexpected. Movement was deliberately used for the enquiry as a stimulus to help children embody what resilience is.
After the stormbreak activity children shared their ideas about what they thought resilience was. Their responses have been collated and used to generate the following definition.
In their words:
"Resilience is the confidence and perseverance to keep trying and never give up, even when things get tough, or mistakes are made. It involves a growth mindset, commitment, and the determination to fulfil your goals and continually strive for improvement."
[Y5 children’s collective definition of resilience]
The children also created a number of challenging questions that they wanted to explore together. Some of these are shared below.
Next time you try a resilience stormbreak, see if you can pose one of these questions to the children as part of a follow up discussion.
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What would happen if you failed and never showed resilience? How do we recover from our mistakes? What if we can't be resilient? Why is resilience meaningful? |
Resilience is not a fixed construct and a child’s understanding of resilience is likely to change as they get older. However, creating spaces for children to regularly think, discuss, share and understand their life experiences will support them in recognising moments of resilience in the future.
So next time they give up, before they reach the end, even though their intention was to finish, they will know why and what their next response will be.
References
Fisher, R. (2013). Teaching thinking: Philosophical enquiry in the classroom. London: Bloomsbury.
Golding, C. (2015). The Community of Inquiry: Blending philosophical and empirical research. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 34(2), 205-216.
Murris, K.S. (2008), Philosophy with Children, the Stingray and the Educative Value of Disequilibrium. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42: 667-685.
Dr Vicky Randall, Programme Manager, stormbreak CIO
victoria@stormbreak.org.uk
Dr Rhainnnon Love, Senior Lecturer, University of Winchester
rhiannon.love@winchester.ac.uk