Resilience in children: Educational significance

Everybody will encounter adversity in life at one point or another. Being able to deal with the situation competently, and move forward, depends on resilience. Psychologists refer to two widely known approaches for dealing with adversity: emotion focused and problem focused, the latter being the more desirable, as the emotion-focused approach has been linked with depression. However, having effective coping skills does not occur automatically and children need some guidance in this respect. Despite, in most cases, parents1 playing the major role in a child’s upbringing, schools also play a significant role. This paper discusses some practical applications for educators which may help foster resilience in children they teach.