How do you encourage students to continue after a setback or persist in a challenge? Follow these tips for building resilience in students.
Why Is Resilience Important?
Resilience is more than toughness.
A resilient person can withstand difficulty and recover quickly from setbacks.
This quality helps students become successful academically, but, more than that, it is important for life success.
Your students will face challenges, and they will need the mental strength to work through those challenges.
When they fail (because everyone does at some point), they must pick themselves up and try again.
That’s resilience.
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Training Resilience in Students
Building resilience in students requires intention and strategy.
Help Them Find Their “Why”
Much of academic learning involves building a foundation of knowledge and developing critical thinking skills.
As the teacher, you know that what they are learning is worthwhile because you see the big picture.
However, students often don’t see the “why” of what they are learning.
That can leave them unmotivated. They think, “What is the point of learning this? It doesn’t apply to my life right now.”
Show students the connection between what they are learning and real life, and they will be eager to learn.
Be Resilient Yourself
You can be a living, breathing example of resilience to your students.
To that end, demonstrate how to bounce back from failure and persist in difficulty.
Share personal stories of how you have overcome challenges and bounced back from failure.
Teach Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-solving skills will help your students work through a problem and not give up at the outset.
You can teach creativity and problem-solving with these activities.
You will need to provide opportunities for your students to practice these skills. Activities like coding build problem-solving skills.
Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Goals motivate students.
Suddenly, day-to-day tasks have a larger purpose, and that’s motivating.
But it’s important to set the right kind of goals.
Goals that are too lofty are unreachable only serve to discourage students.
If a goal is too easy, students won’t stretch themselves at all. They won’t have an opportunity to develop resilience.
Find the Goldilocks zone of academic goals by making sure the goals are S.M.A.R.T.
S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Promote Social-Emotional Regulation
Challenges can come with a host of emotions: discouragement, frustration, anger, anxiety, sadness, and even emotional shutdown.
Students need coping skills to work through those feelings and regulate their emotions. Building resilience involves social-emotional regulation.
You can teach coping skills like relaxation exercises and show them ways to relieve stress and anxiety.
By teaching them to identify and manage their emotions, you can help them move through challenges and be resilient.
Teach Growth Mindset
If you have a growth mindset, you believe intelligence is not fixed. It is the result of hard work and dedication.
Students with a growth mindset are much more likely to be resilient.
They know there is a value to challenges and setbacks; they are both learning opportunities.
A growth mindset (as opposed to a fixed mindset) is not something you are gifted with at birth. It can be cultivated.
You can teach growth mindset with these growth mindset activities.
Establish a Safe Environment
Is your classroom or homeschool a safe learning environment? Do students take risks and try new things?
Ensure your learning environment is where effort, not success, is praised.
Students should feel they can try and fail without risking disapproval or mockery.
How to Build Resilience in Students
Your students can become resilient individuals with these tips.
Challenges are a part of life, but by building resilience in students, you can help them meet challenges with determination and, ultimately, learn from them.