Weekly Update
January 10, 2025
Resilience
We will focus on resilience this week. We define resilience as the ability to recover after something does not go your way. At Oak Brook, we are working to help our students learn that not everything will always go the way they want it to go. We try to help them understand that some issues are big and some are small and that some may be solved on their own while others will require help from adults. There are numerous ways you can help your child develop resilience.
Helping Children Develop Resilience
- Help them identify their emotions: Encourage them to share their feelings and ask what's bothering them. We use our zones of development (see picture below). We want them to understand that we all experience a range of emotions and help them learn how to identify and then manage their emotions as they problem solve during difficult times.
- Encourage a growth mindset: Help them believe that things can improve with work. Students should understand the power of yet. You can't do that yet but keep working at it.
- Praise their effort: Give them "process praise" that focuses on their strategies and effort.
- Help them build self-compassion: Teach them to be kind to themselves when they fail or make mistakes.
- Help them learn from their mistakes: Talk about what they learned from a difficult situation and how they can use that to improve next time.
- Help them develop a positive self-view: Help them see their strengths and how they've helped them in the past.
- Help them develop a hopeful outlook: Encourage them to focus on the present and what they can do to improve.
