Is resilience just a buzzword?

If you have kids in school, resilience is a word you’ve probably heard by now. It’s being taught and talked about increasingly, but do you know what it is? And how could it help your child?

Resilience isn’t a new invention. With the marking of the two World Wars of the last century, many people have commented on the stoicism of previous generations. And of course, that has led to the comparison. Why isn’t this generation as resilient? And why is there so much anxiety among youngsters? There is even a generation (now young adults) unkindly termed ‘snowflakes’ because they are less resilient.

There are lots of theories about this, but let’s acknowledge that stoicism and burying trauma and hurtful feelings has never been a good idea. It might be necessary to get you through a war, but the psychological damage done to a generation that could never talk about the experience is evident in many.

We know about some of today’s pressures, including the way friendships go wrong – the ‘frenemy’ – social media and school/exam worries. Bounceability tackles these things with pep talks and perspective. And of course, we as parents need to reflect on how we bring up our kids. In the UK, at least, we haven’t faced any major adversity like a war, so are we raising kids who have an inflated sense of entitlement? ‘Things should always go my way,’ ‘Everything has to be right.’ When things do go wrong, like a parental break up, do we know how best to support them?

In Bounceability we talk about things like perfectionism and failure and how life is going to have its ups and downs.

So where does that leave resilience? It’s clear the stoicism of the 20^th Century isn’t fit for purpose. We are a more individualistic and less deferential society, we are saturated with information and images, so we need a much greater range of responses to help us cope with modern day challenges.

Bounceability defines resilience as: ‘Learning the appropriate response to a challenging situation’. And the responses are a range of tools – understanding anxiety, challenging negative – pesky – thoughts, building your support network – which gives kids modern-day resilience.

Bounceability is an online resilience course for kids and teenagers created by accredited counsellor Sandra Hewett. www.bounceability.net