Making your Preschooler resilient

Your preschooler is encountering and experimenting with everything for the first time. In the preschool your child meets new friends, learns new skills and activities and also is introduced to a new environment for the first time. Though the preschool age is a little early to introduce resilience to your child, it is the right time to gently plant the idea of resilience in your child.

The concept of resilience is like the concept of a rubber band, your child should be strong enough to go to school, learn concepts, make friends and come back home the same child who left for school. The ability to stretch their imagination, interact with peers and develop new skills is all a part of the concept of resilience.

Teaching your child the concept of resilience is similar to teaching him to fall down and get back again, without making a hue and cry about it. You can teach your child that if they don’t win they have the inner strength to improve and win the next time. You can teach your child how to rebound when something doesn’t go its way.

Here are some tips on how you can make your child a strong and more resilient child. If you wish to foster resilience in your child, don’t offer it a quick solution every time he faces a problem. Let it learn to find solutions. For example, if you go out with your child, and he falls down, wait for a minute and see whether he makes attempt to get up on his own or waits for you to help him. If he gets up on his own and goes about his way, you can admire him and appreciate his ability to get back again. Help him clean the mud of his knees but admire his running skill and generally don’t focus on solving his problem for him.

Teach your child the concept of persistence over perfection, he should not be taught the concept of perfection, which will unnecessary confuse him; instead teach him that participating is as good as winning. Praising your three-year old will build his self-confidence, which is essential in making him more resilient. Set example of resilience and show your resilient behaviour to your child.

Use words that encourage persistence rather than perfection. Don’t use words like always and never. Avoid saying I can never make it, instead encourage making efforts, when you make efforts your child too will learn to make efforts.

Pushing perfection on the child means, setting examples in front of and asking your child to be like them, instead allow your child to develop his self-confidence. Allow your child to make choices and appreciate them, this will make him more confident and resilient. If your child shows a choice for wild colours, let him wear the colour it likes, this will foster his self-confidence and make him more resilient. A confident child is a resilient child. Your pre-schooler can also become more resilient, if you encourage him to be more self-confident, by avoiding solving his problems and encourage him to make independent choices.