Resilience
Life is never perfect but children can learn ideas and ways of thinking that provide some protection from psychological harm.  Resilience is the ability to adapt to adverse events and circumstances without undue negative psychological effects.  It’s the ability to “pick yourself up and dust yourself off” and get on with life after facing difficulties.  Being resilient helps children to deal with adversity, such as poverty, and other stressors.  It refers, in part, to habitual ways of thinking and the ability to develop positive relationships and social supports that have been found to reduce the risk for depression and improve the likelihood of success at school, work, and later relationships. Resilience is associated with the ability to regulate emotions (e.g., anger management) and control impulses, to understand the causes of events, experience empathy for others, be realistically optimistic, and to engage with other people, and to recognize and seize opportunities.¹

Resilience is believed to be connected to positive relationships
developed early in childhood. For more information, view the
PowerPoint presentation, The First "R": Relationships, by Jean Clinton, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Associate Member of the Offord Centre for Child Studies.

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