Ask the Experts: Building Resilience and Confidence in Children

How can parents build resilience and confidence in their children?

When our children experience big emotions, frustration, or setbacks, it’s natural to want to help. You notice your child struggling to tie their shoe? We might quickly do it for them so you can get out the door. Did they come home upset about a disagreement with a friend? We may immediately want to know who hurt them, offer advice, or tell them to stay away from that person.

Our instinct to help comes from a good place, but sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is to support without immediately trying to solve the problem or remove the source of the tough emotion.

Children build resilience by having opportunities to experience manageable frustration, work through uncomfortable feelings, try different strategies, and discover, “I can handle this.” If we consistently remove every source of frustration or solve problems for them, we can unintentionally take away some of those opportunities to practice.

That doesn’t mean we should leave children to figure everything out on their own. It means we can pause before stepping in and ask, “How can I help them practice solving this problem?”

This connects to the idea of the window of tolerance, a concept often associated with psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dan Siegel. Think of your window of tolerance as the zone where your brain and body are calm and regulated enough to think, learn, problem-solve, and make decisions. When stress becomes too intense, we can move outside that window-either becoming overwhelmed and highly reactive or shutting down and withdrawing.

The good news is that our capacity to tolerate stress can grow; children can gradually build their ability to handle frustration and uncomfortable emotions when they have safe, age-appropriate opportunities to practice.

It’s okay if they don’t have a perfect day. Kids have bad days just like adults do. They will have friendship problems, make mistakes, feel disappointed, lose their temper, and become frustrated. Those experiences can become opportunities to practice coping and problem-solving skills-not necessarily problems that need an immediate adult intervention.

So, what can parents do?

Model the skills you want your child to develop.

Let them hear your self-talk. Narrate what is happening in your brain and body when you experience frustration:

"Man, I was really frustrated today when my computer wouldn't work. I could feel my heart beating faster, and I caught myself thinking, 'I can't believe this always happens to me!' I took a breath, reminded myself that I could figure it out, and while the computer restarted, I got some water and took a quick break."

These little moments teach children something incredibly important: having a strong emotion doesn't mean you have to act on it. You can notice what your brain is telling you, pause, choose a strategy, and try again.

We can also help children recognize their own self-talk. When they are facing a difficult moment, instead of immediately telling them what to do, try asking:

• "What is your brain telling you right now?"
• "Is that thought helping you or making things harder?"
• "What could you tell yourself instead?"
• "What's one thing you could try?"

The goal isn't to prevent our children from experiencing frustration, disappointment, or stress. The goal is to help them become confident in their ability to handle those feelings when they inevitably show up. I love asking, "What advice would you give your best friend if they were going through this?" 

When we model coping, give children space to practice, and step in when they truly need our support, we help them build something bigger than a single coping skill. We're helping them develop the confidence to think, "This is hard, but I can handle hard things."

For more insights from author and school counselor Laura Filtness, follow @pawsitiveschoolcounselor on Facebook and Instagram or visit her website.