Resilience

Research shows that children who are exposed to adversity have worse developmental outcomes than those who are not. But children who are resilient have the ability to adapt despite experiences of significant risk or trauma.

Resilience can mean many different things: recovering from traumatic events, overcoming disadvantages to succeed in life, and withstanding stress to function well in the tasks of life. It was thought initially that resilience was a characteristic of the child; however, more and more, research indicates that family and social factors help a child to offset environmental stress.

It is important to identify the sources of resilience in competent children because we can then try to boost the resilience of less competent children, especially those living in conditions of high stress.

See also...

• What do we know?
• What can be done?
• According to experts