Building Adolescent Emotional Resilience

Lysa’s Limericks

The adolescent developmental stage is filled with many complex areas such as relationships,  school, and their identities. Building emotional resilience throughout this time period will prove  valuable to successfully navigate life’s transition and challenges. 

What is Emotional Resilience 

Resilience is the ability to recoup following adversity such as elevated stress or trauma.  Resilience does not mean that stress does not affect you or that you avoid struggles in life. Resilience is feeling confident that you are capable of effectively managing challenges and regulating emotions.  

Strategies to Build Emotional Resilience 

1. Support: having a strong support network of family and friends is an essential component of emotional resilience. Being able to confide in trusted support persons to both share  information and receive guidance promotes growth for an adolescent. A support system  also provides open communication and a safe place where an adolescent can feel  emotionally secure. 
2. Model and Promote Healthy Coping Strategies: adults and caregivers should demonstrate  healthy coping methods when encountering episodes of stress. Teach strategies that will  lend itself to decreasing troublesome symptoms such as deep-breathing techniques,  meditation and grounding exercises. 
3. Promote Emotional Awareness: help your adolescent identify their emotions. Teach them  to label their feelings and explain that it is healthy to express their various emotions.  Discuss ways to appropriately convey these feelings such as journaling or art. 
4. Set Realistic Goals: ensure that your adolescent is setting realistic goals that are tangible. This approach allows the adolescent to be less likely to feel overwhelmed. Encourage your adolescents to reach their goals and acknowledge their achievements and any obstacles they may have faced along the way. 
5. Teach Problem-Solving Skills: help your adolescent view a challenge with a systematic  approach. Teach them to identify the problem, generate possible solutions, weigh the pros  and cons, and then make an educated decision. 

Conclusion 

Building emotional resilience is a fundamental tool to instill within your adolescents. It is through the guidance of the adults and caregivers that adolescents can develop emotional maturity.