The Four R's
You've probably heard of the "3 Rs": Reading, Writing, Arithmetic-a focus of education. What about the fourth R-Resilience? Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks, to learn from failure, to be motivated by challenges and to believe in your own abilities to deal with the stress and difficulties in life. What you might not know is that, just like reading, writing and arithmetic, resilience can be learned. Children can learn-from their parents, teachers, and coaches-how to develop the skills of resilience, and I believe the resilience skills are as important as the other 3 R's. Why? Because every child's life will be touched by setbacks as well as achievement, pain as well as joy, loss as well as triumph. In order for children to reach their fullest potential, they need to know how to approach life with resilience. Resilience enables your child to thrive no matter what life puts in his or her path.

The Seven Ingredients of Resilience
Resilience is not all or nothing. It comes in amounts. You can be a little resilient, a lot resilient; resilient in some situations but not others. And, no matter how resilient your child is today, you can help him or her become more resilient tomorrow. Research has identified a variety of important ingredients of resilience but there are seven that we can most easily teach our children.


1. Emotion Awareness and Control
One of the myths about resilience is that resilient people tough it out without expressing emotion. They keep it all inside and are stoic in the face of adversity. This view of resilience might be common, but it's not accurate. Resilient people-adults and children-are comfortable with their feelings and they express them. In fact, resilient children experience a broad array of emotions-happiness, joy, fear, sadness. They have a good understanding of their own emotions and they feel comfortable talking about what they are feeling with people they trust. So, when a resilient child goes through a tough time, she does feel sad or scared or anxious. After all, she is human! However, there is an important difference that distinguishes the more resilient from the less resilient. Resilient children don't get "stuck" in an emotion. Although they might feel sad or scared, these feelings don't prevent them from coping with the situation and moving forward. When an emotion is too strong, so strong that it interferes with the person's ability to cope, the resilient person knows how to control her emotions so that she is able to push forward with a plan of action.   

2. Impulse Control
We all have impulses to do things and say things that aren't in our best interest or helpful or kind to others. Resilience doesn't require that you stop having these impulses, but it does require you to stop yourself from acting on every impulse you have. Resilient children have internalized the "stop and think" message and use it to make choices about their actions. The good news is that impulse control can be learned. So even if your child is impulsive, you can learn some simple strategies to teach him to handle situations better.

Optimism: A key Ingredient in Happiness > Resilience: Ingredient List Making Hope Happen