- June 21, 2022
- 1143
- Blog
When you think about the most important factors for promoting learning in children, resilience is
something that may not come to mind. However, research is continually showing that resilience is a
critically important skill for children that enables them to succeed. Let’s take a broader look at the
importance of resilience.
What is Resilience?
When we discuss resilience, we are essentially talking about a students’ ability to adapt to
challenging circumstances, difficult life experiences, or overcome adversity. This is an important part
of socio-emotional learning that students develop over time.
Resilience helps predict how well a student will do when they encounter challenging material in class
or a difficult assignment. It also predicts how well they will persevere through challenges in their
own life and interpersonal relationships. It is a good predictor for future success.
Why Is Resilience Important Now?
While resilience has always been an important skill, it is receiving tremendous attention now given
the changes we have seen in society recently. Colleges have been noting for nearly a decade that
many students are arriving without the necessary resilience and social-emotional learning to
succeed.
Additionally, the recent pandemic has created an environment where students have struggled
immensely after disruption to their routines. The lack of resilience has played a critical role in lower
student performance, behavior problems, and decreased test scores. While these problems largely
have a number of solutions, one of the core ones is helping children develop resilience.
Research has shown that resilience was an important characteristic in being able to continue to
thrive during the disruptions caused by the pandemic. In a world characterized by increasingly rapid
changes paired with a strong desire for instant gratification, resilience will surely continue to be one
of the most important skills for people to develop to support their learning and ability to thrive.
How Do Children Develop Resilience?
Developing resilience is an increasingly difficult concept. Part of this is due to the increase of instant
gratification within our society. When people are used to having positive outcomes quickly, the
ability to persevere through stressful times naturally decreases as resilience is typically built through
processes that involve delayed gratification.
However, many parents are seeking curriculums that emphasize the development of types of social-
emotional learning such as resilience. This is why Get Set Go Learning focuses on teaching children
resilience, achievement, confidence, and efficiency as part of their “RACE” for success, helping
students learn to embrace their mistakes as a natural part of learning.
