Resilience is not a genetic trait that passes from mother or father, nor something that sooner or later everyone will acquire. People constantly face situations of stress and challenges, and strategies may or may not exist to overcome those issues.
Everyone faces it despite the age group. When facing difficulties, young people may be more likely to adopt risky behaviours, truancy, or underestimate the importance of building and maintaining social relationships. It is then very important to build the sense of resilience among youth during their learning processes so that these difficulties are dealt with in a good way. This should be something that we, as a society, embrace as a lifetime goal. If children are the future, then we need to make sure that we pass to them the best possible strategies and knowledge to cope with different challenges that they may face.
The sense of helping the others can be accomplished by showing young people that their own attitudes can be reflected onto others.
It is important that schools and families work together to assure that resilience is stimulated in a natural and effective way among young people so that strong, meaningful relationships may be nurtured. Furthermore, cooperation and a sense of helping others is also very important for the development of children. At school, teachers can cultivate that by having students helping their peers daily with different tasks in the classroom. This will give children a sense of feeling valuable and useful which is an important psychological impact benefiting their future. The sense of helping the others can be accomplished by showing young people that their own attitudes can be reflected onto others, therefore, being a good example to follow. In this sense, resilience is something that should be addressed within schools and parents to enable young people with the tools to better live in wider society.
There are other strategies that can be useful in helping young people build resilience. Teaching methods of self-care, setting goals, and understanding challenges that are only going to make them better people and more able to navigate the world. During the time that I worked as an English teacher in Vietnam, I used to set goals at the beginning of the week, and I believe that helped my students to understand what was expected, the energy needed, and more importantly, to create a positive boost in their self-esteem when those goals were accomplished. I also liked to show them that every mistake is a lesson and that they can look at mistakes as a challenge. I believe that this can help young people understand that, although difficulties may although seem like a big problem, it is solvable.
Ultimately, special attention to resilience strategies should be actively, persistently given by care givers to young people. The assumption that resilience is a natural human trait should not be taken for truth and must be understood as a personal skill that needs to be improved upon, addressed, and stressed for young people to be better equipped to deal with life’s challenges.