Lack of study motivation, conformity, and an immediate self-satisfaction mentality are common characteristics for many of today's youth. This means that they are not prepared to face the changes in life, and that is why they urgently need to learn to be more autonomous and decisive, but… how do they acquire these skills?
The concept of resilience
Luis Rojas Marcos, eminent psychiatrist, defines resilience as "the strength to fit in, resist, and overcome adversity." This is the only explanation that justifies a businessman who has gone bankrupt, rebuild an empire; or that a mother can continue living after the death of a child.
If we are dedicated to trying to improve 21st century education is clear, it is that at least until now, students have not been educated to be resilient. In fact, it is only necessary to see how they collapse when they fail an exam or when they fail a series of oppositions.
Now, although resilience is something that some people have innately, it can also be taught, and then we will tell you some recipes to achieve it.
Recipes for resilience
If you want to raise resilient children, you must help them develop the following skills:
1. Social intelligence: refers to the ability to relate to others in an assertive, empathetic and constructive way. It is closely related to the competence of autonomy and personal social initiative and the social and civic competence.
2. Proactivity and heuristic thinking: it consists of the ability to confront problems in a decisive way, going from thinking to action and learning from each failure. It is closely related to the competence of learning to learn and, again, autonomy and personal initiative.
3. High achievement motivation: it has to do with the pursuit of excellence in all the things we do in our lives, the ability to fight for our dreams and commitment to the task. All this is closely related to the aforementioned skills, but also with the rest of them, since, as the person masters a greater number of skills, they will tend to set higher goals.
4. Personal autonomy: it means being able to take care of oneself and learn to take responsibility for everything that is done every day, that is, to assume the role of protagonist in the film of life. This skill, like the previous one, is closely related to all competences and depends to a great extent on our children having a strong and healthy self-esteem.
Well, we already know the skills that we must develop in the children and adolescents that we educate, but what can we do every day to help them build them? Here are some strategies that will surely make your task easier.
Strategies to build a resilient personality
- Provide unconditional love and build a secure attachment Express frequent expressions of affection verbally and non-verbally Educate with positive discipline Teach self-control strategies Predict yourself with resilient behavior Use social reinforcements Provide opportunities to learn to Be responsible Communicate using empathetic listening Help cope with problems in an original and divergent way
Seems like a lot to consider, right? Take it easy, it's not that we have to be sacrificed to educate resilient children, but rather, to learn to be more resilient so that our children follow our example when we see how we face the different situations that present themselves and learn from them.
