A New Way to Think About Resilience

Most educators would agree that resilience is one of the most important skills for children to develop. It shows up in classrooms under many forms: growth mindset, grit, persistence.

Recently, during a grit-themed assembly for our middle school students, a colleague leaned over and said, “I’m always preaching resilience to my daughters, but I’m not so sure it’s working.” Which got me thinking... what if we’ve been approaching resilience all wrong? Maybe the message we’re sending to kids is that resilience is a destination, rather than a journey. Perhaps, if we take a step back, we’ll find that our students already are resilient, and all they really need is adults to help cultivate that quality. 

Shifting Perspective

Special educators—like me—love explicit instruction. For years, I’ve used a Y chart to teach resilience, among other social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. A “looks like, sounds like, feels like” Y chart can help students be more aware of resilience, both in themselves and in others. Explicit instruction can play a valuable role in SEL, even for neurotypical students. Often, though, our messaging can get lost in lecture. Despite our best intentions, we might just be turning kids off to the concept of resilience, because we’re really working in a deficit mindset.

One year, I worked with a student with ADHD who experienced assignment paralysis due to executive functioning overwhelm—a fancy way to say they avoided doing work they deemed too difficult or to take too long. The student had a really difficult month both in school and out: illnesses, loss, and a few social conflicts within our class of fewer than 10 kids. Naturally, my student fell behind. While their teachers were initially happy to be flexible, that understanding waned as the weeks wore on and my student continued to struggle with independent task completion. As our worry increased, we increased support for the student, including parent meetings.

Looking back, the conversation focused on how resilient the student wasn’t being. I realize now what a mistake that was. The truth is, this child came to school day after day, facing teachers whose work they hadn’t done, attending classes they were struggling in, and sitting among classmates they had physical and verbal altercations with. I know for sure I could never do that (and maybe you couldn’t either).

Humans—and particularly kids—are wired to be resilient. It’s arguably one of our most important mechanisms for survival. We see resilience almost from birth: Babies learn to feed, talk, reach, chew, crawl, and walk… but not without weeks or months of failed attempts. Caregivers cultivate resilience in these early years with lots of encouragement, providing opportunities, feedback, and praise to help little ones reach these milestones. But somewhere along the way, we shift from a strength-based, cultivation-centered approach to a deficit mindset fraught with lectures… leaving kids feeling like they’ll never be resilient, despite the fact that their current existence is proof they already are.

I changed my approach. I wrote my student a note (this is a weekly practice for me) that said, “I hope we can chat today. I don’t think you’ve been getting the credit you deserve.” I made sure to call out just how resilient they were being. This got me thinking more about the resilience of all kids, but especially kids in the neurodivergent community. So, I took my new perspective and created a new approach.

A new approach to student resilience

I encourage educators who are passionate about building resilient kids to reflect on their practices and give some version of this approach a try. Great teaching is, I think, a lot like adjusting the dials on a control panel. Your students and the needs of everyone in the room will dictate what you turn up or down, day by day, student by student. The dials on my switchboard are observation, expectation, anticipation, celebration.

The small shift made a big impact—my students started seeing themselves as already resilient, rather than feeling like they were chasing a dragon. As educators make the shift to this strengths-based approach, here are some ideas to focus on:

Lecturing less, observing more: Simply put, I step back, preach less, and observe more. Remember that this approach is about cultivating what already exists. It takes a lot less talking than many of us are used to or comfortable with. Focus on providing clear, concise, positive feedback when we see resilience rather than providing redirection and correction when we think we don’t.

Setting realistic expectations and celebrating everything: Adults are often guilty of expecting kids to be mini-adults. You wouldn’t shame a seedling for not having any flowers. In the same way, we often spend more time correcting kids for what they haven’t yet achieved, even if it’s not age or maturation appropriate. Meet them where they are. Celebrate the small wins, and the wins will surely grow.

Anticipating barriers: Speaking of meeting them where they are, it’s important for us as educators to anticipate barriers that students will face and create accessible pathways over those barriers. That’s not to say we should remove obstacles from our students—resilience isn’t built by never failing, but by building confidence through repeated success from challenges. For example, with my student who was struggling with assignment completion, inconsistent homework time and support at home was a barrier to success. So, his family and I came up with a homework time and place, including attending extra help after school, where he could receive more guidance. We didn’t say he shouldn’t have to do homework: Instead, we created a pathway that helped increase his chances for success.

Praising specifically and abundantly: In the same way that I try to “catch” my students being good so I can capitalize on it, I tried to catch my students being resilient. Rather than telling them what to do, I gave clear and concise praise when they did it: “I noticed you were super-silly in the beginning of class, but you were so focused toward the end. Way to be resilient”; “I know you were frustrated with me yesterday, but you came to class today with a smile—way to bounce back.”

I often hear teachers express fear of overpraising. They’re concerned that we’re raising “everyone gets a trophy” kids and that if we praise them for skills that are still developing, we’ll give them false confidence and discourage growth. To that I say, would LeBron James be LeBron James if that were true? People don’t give up because they are experiencing success with a skill: They give up because they believe they never will. When praise is clear, concise, and authentic, we foster growth. We help kids recognize their abilities, celebrating small wins and opening doors for them to try again.

I am proud to say that the student in question is poised to finish the school year without a single missing assignment. I’m not crazy enough to take all the credit. In fact, I don’t really want to take any. The resilience was already inside of my student—they just needed to know it too, just needed someone to show them. Educators have long known that strength-based pedagogy yields the best results, and I encourage all educators who want to cultivate their students’ resilience to lean into this new approach.