The Educator's Guide to Building Child & Family Resilience

THE EDUCATOR’S RESILIENCE CHILD & FAMIL Y GUIDE TO BUILDING Unlocking the Power of the Stories Students Tell

LINDA C. MAYES & MICHELE MYERS

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ................................................................................................. 4 Foreword by Lauren Tarshis ................................................................................... 5 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS RESILIENCE? ................................................................ 16

CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING SUPPORTIVE RELATIONSHIPS ............................. 32 Routines and Activities ................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER 3: FORMING POSITIVE SELF-IDENTITIES ...................................... 56 Routines and Activities ................................................................................... 70 CHAPTER 4: SUPPORTING CURIOSITY AND MOTIVATION .............................. 80 Routines and Activities ................................................................................... 94 CHAPTER 5: ENGAGING FLEXIBLE THINKING .............................................. 104 Routines and Activities .................................................................................. 120 CHAPTER 6: DEMONSTRATING ALTRUISM .................................................... 130 Routines and Activities .................................................................................. 144 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 154 Children’s Literature Cited .................................................................................. 155 References .......................................................................................................... 156 Index ................................................................................................................... 158

INTRODUCTION

A s authors, we come to this work with our own histories that drove us to be fascinated by stories of resilience and driven to offer that capacity to others. We want to ground this book by sharing the inspiration that brought us each to become coauthors on this shared mission.

Michele’s Story We all have stories, and we all have experienced some form of trauma in our lives or know someone who has. I am no exception. When Linda and I began writing this book about resilience, I reflected on my life and thought about the events that have taught me important lessons about resilience. There

With my parents, Elijah and Sandra, my advisor, Dr. Amy Donnelly, and my beloved grandmother, Elouise, at my doctoral hooding. All of these people have helped me build resilience skills.

were many, but I thought of two major events that taught me the most. One happened in my personal life and the other in my professional work as an educator. Both had a profound impact on me and will forever shape how I engage in the world. What I am about to write requires vulnerability on my part and my trust that you, too, will garner important lessons as you read our book that will help you understand why resilience should be an essential element in teacher education. On June 22, 1996, I stood before family and friends and vowed to love and cherish the man that I adored. During my marriage, I achieved great feats professionally, earning master’s, education specialist, and doctoral degrees, and I advanced in my

Introduction 7

career. In my marriage, I experienced great joy, especially when I gave birth to our two amazing daughters, Summer and Zoya. But there were also traumatic events that occurred, both emotionally and physically. While confronting this trauma, there were many times that I felt overwhelmed, lost, and hopeless. But I knew I had two impressionable girls who needed me. I am grateful that there were people in my network (my parents, grandparents, brother, aunts, friends, and the teachers with whom I worked) who rallied around me and helped in the ways that they could. I couldn’t do it on my own, and I am glad that I did not have to. This was the first lesson I learned about resilience: Having a strong support system is critical. It was important for me to be able to tap into the relationships that I had with my support system and to know that they would do whatever was needed to help us. Another lesson that I learned is that it is okay to seek and receive help from others. Being vulnerable enough to say, “I need your help,” and having someone say, “Don’t worry, I got you,” was very liberating. What I saw in my support system continues to impact me, both professionally and personally. This is especially true when working with children who are in crisis. This brings me to the second event that enhanced my understanding of resilience. In my career, I have had the honor of working with countless learners, but there is one child who stands out for me. I will call her Latasha. I taught Latasha when she was in first and second grade. Latasha was a beautiful, energetic, and curious child. She had a smile that lit up any room. Her energy was positive, and all her classmates liked being around her. Latasha stole my heart with her sass and wit. It was a joy teaching and getting to know her. However, when she came back for second grade, I witnessed drastic changes in Latasha’s disposition. The smile that lit up our classroom was now replaced with deep sadness and despair. Her cheerful demeanor that everyone enjoyed had been replaced with a more withdrawn, and at times disruptive, little girl. I noticed other changes in her as well. She began pulling out her hair from the roots; she stopped eating lunch and was losing a lot of weight; and she began having loud outbursts. I knew something was not right, but I didn’t know what. I sought the help of the principal, guidance counselor, and social worker who monitored Latasha’s placement in her new foster home. We worked together to get to the bottom of what was going on and eventually found out that Latasha was

8 The Educator’s Guide to Building Child & Family Resilience

being sexually abused in her new placement. This discovery resulted in Latasha being removed from the foster home and admitted to a mental health facility to receive treatment for depression and trauma. I was devastated and blamed myself because I felt that I should have sought help for her sooner. My colleagues reassured me that I did my best by her, given what I knew at the time. I was only able to accept this and forgive myself after my first visit with Latasha at the mental health facility months later when I was permitted to visit her there. When I walked in, Latasha ran over and greeted me with a hug. I wept when Latasha said, “You are the only one who really loves me.” Like my divorce, this event helped me learn more about cultivating important resilience-promoting capacities in children. It taught me that identity matters. When I noticed changes in Latasha’s behavior, instead of identifying her as a problem child and writing her up for each misbehavior, I remembered the little girl that I adored. I documented what I saw and sought others who were more skilled to help me figure out what was going on. This also helped me to grasp the importance of thinking more flexibly about a situation and being curious enough to get to the root of what was causing the change in behavior. My experience with Latasha stayed with me and propelled me to do my best for all the children that I work with. Her words compel me to maintain that all children can benefit from resilience-promoting skills, not just the ones who have undergone some kind of trauma. She gave me purpose. It made me think of the traditional

greeting of the fabled Maasai warriors: Kasserian Ingera? which means, “And how are the children?” The expected response is, “All the children are well,” meaning that the children are protected and safe. The priority of the village is to make sure the children grow up in a healthy, loving environment where they can thrive. As a part of Latasha’s village, I had done what was needed so that she could be well. And she is. I am happy to report that after receiving the help she needed, Latasha went to live with her biological aunt where she continues to thrive. I am also happy to share

With my daughters, Summer and Zoya

that my girls are thriving. Summer has a master’s degree and teaches third grade, Zoya is a senior in college earning a bachelor’s degree in business, and I, too, am doing well and thriving both personally and professionally. We each have learned resilience-promoting skills and strategies that are nurtured through our support

Introduction 9

networks that help us to face life’s challenges and move forward.

Linda’s Story Of all my experiences as a pediatrician on the front lines of acute pediatric care, the ones I had in the neonatal intensive care unit are etched most deeply and vividly in my memory. It is there where the combination of biology and a caring environment meet to make for literal survival and hope for a child. Two stories come together as one to shape my career-long interest in both the long reach of early adversity and the mystery of what gives some children a safe, sustaining buffer and others a very fragile, thin covering. Where does resilience take hold? What is resilience? One story is my first encounter with the smallest infant I had ever cared for. Born too early and too small—barely a pound, this

baby was a survivor. She was just over six months in her mother’s womb before she came into the world, annealed like steel by the stresses of her mother’s burdened life. We called her “Lunchbox,” an affectionate nod to her small but sturdy presence just big enough for a lunchbox. Not like the large, feast-holding lunchboxes carried these days but the old style, small compact ones holding just enough to get its owner through the day. This was Lunchbox, making it through each day and keeping all of us going as other babies, sturdier by weight but frailer by constitution, struggled and sometimes succumbed around her. Her isolette was just inside the door of the first nursery room. All of us walked past her isolette many times a day. We often gathered close to the door and spoke about the day’s business but always with one eye toward Lunchbox. We imagined our constant presence made a difference for her. Lunchbox’s isolette was an old-style box with portals that turned open with a click and a swish, allowing us quick access to the baby. Many a baby, conditioned to that sound, would start to move in agitation or turn away as much as their tiny muscles allowed but not Lunchbox. Instead, almost as

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if reaching toward the light and the world, we imagined Lunchbox was asking all of us, nurses, residents, fellows, and attending physicians alike, to care for her. With her family unable to travel the distance to see her often, we took her in. We cheered her every gained ounce, fretted over her few but concerning setbacks, and sometimes took extra time to sit by her bed just to give her company and find respite in her sturdiness. She was, after all, a miracle, the smallest baby of her birth weight and gestational age to survive and be doing so well. To us, Lunchbox was an emerging individual with a personality and a growing book of stories about her spirit and strength. We all believed Lunchbox was simply determined to survive in this world, find whatever good that world had to offer, and we were there to help her on her way. Of course, we “knew” that Lunchbox was a fragile, delicate soul who needed our help even to survive, but it gave us all hope and strength to imagine Lunchbox as innately strong and beckoning us to care for her. I was not there when Lunchbox was discharged home, but I knew we had sent her out into the world with the best odds our physical and emotional care could provide. Lunchbox would now be a middle-aged woman. Did she remain of small wiry stature, or did she fill out and have a body that matched what we were sure was her personality—forceful and determined, pulling the world in to help her? Did she grow into as sturdy and resolute a toddler and young child as we imagined her to be as a small, premature baby? Did she thrive in school? Did she find a loving partner, become a mother, become a grandmother? It is these very questions about Lunchbox that bring me to the second story from my experiences in the intensive care nursery. As a part of my fellowship in neonatology, we also consulted in the clinic that saw formerly preterm infants now returning as school-aged children and adolescents so that we might understand the long-term impact of their early prematurity. Every family coming to that clinic asked these same questions—Will my child thrive in school, can he or she play sports, will he or she become a parent? But they also asked, not always on their first visit but after they got to know and trust us, could their child’s lung disease of prematurity come back? Was there a chance he or she would become so seriously ill again? What could they do to protect their child against this and other unexpected tragedies that might lie ahead? As a physician in training, confident in the certainty

Introduction 11

of science, I initially found these more deeply felt questions puzzling, especially as I saw their healthy, robust, thriving sons and daughters. But with more years and experience, I have come to see these parents were asking a much deeper question—how could they, as parents, give their children the best foundation and skills to meet whatever world they would meet? Fundamentally, this is what all of us caring for Lunchbox were trying to do. And this is what has brought me to the study of resilience and to working with Michele on this book. My experiences in the neonatal intensive care nursery with Lunchbox and so many other small babies and their families have stayed with me for the rest of my career. They shape how I think about children’s development, the possibility of recovery, growth, and gain, and especially about those capacities that help all of us face an often-challenging world. I continue to work with children and families but now am in the department of child and adolescent mental health at Yale and the Child Study Center. I came to Yale to do research so that I could better understand how to help the most vulnerable of children like Lunchbox reach their fullest potential. My research engaged families at the birth of their babies and followed them over now two and a half decades. What is clearest to me is we can all make a significant difference in children’s lives by giving a safe, nurturing environment that gives them the chance to learn how to be caring, thoughtful adults themselves. Individual differences abound in how all children develop and those individual differences combine with life’s positive and negative experiences to make us who we are. But along the way, caring teachers, pediatricians, neighbors, parents, and relatives help us learn skills that promote our capacity to meet the inevitable challenges life brings our way. That is the purpose of this book—to help us all learn how to develop resilience-promoting skills among the children in our care.

We all want our children to have a strong, supportive village of caring people in place who will help nurture their capacities to meet life’s adversities head-on. We want them to find opportunities in whatever challenges, hardships, and losses come their way. Our goal in writing this book is to offer the research, tools, and strategies

12 The Educator’s Guide to Building Child & Family Resilience

to help you give the students in your classrooms the skills they need to foster resilience and a capacity to meet the inevitable challenges in their lives.

The Impact of Trauma and Adversity on Children and the Classroom

One important breakthrough in the field of education over the last several decades is a heightened awareness of the impact of trauma and adversity on the children who walk into our classrooms. Twenty years ago, few educators were talking about trauma, let alone considering it as they created their strategic plans and curricula. Today, most educators understand, broadly and deeply, the countless ways that children who have experienced adversity may have the deck stacked against them as they struggle to maintain balance while trying to learn, play, and connect to others.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) The term Adverse Childhood

mental health (CDC Vitalsigns, 2019). As a group, individuals who have experienced multiple ACEs are at higher risk for chronic diseases, mental health disorders, substance abuse, and early mortality. Thus, addressing and preventing ACEs have been recognized as important public health priorities. Still, the ACEs list is not comprehensive and other traumatic experiences can also have significant negative impacts on children’s well-being. Moreover, the presence of ACEs does not necessarily determine an individual’s future health outcomes, as resilience and protective

Experiences (ACEs) was first coined in the 1990s by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente in a study of the impact that traumatic events can have on children who experience them (Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., et al., 1998). ACEs fall into three categories: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. Examples of ACEs include physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; neglect; parental separation or divorce; exposure to someone with a substance abuse problem or mental illness; and exposure to violence, among others. ACEs can have a cumulative, long-lasting impact on an individual’s physical and

factors can play a crucial role in mitigating the effects of trauma.

Introduction 13

Over the past few decades, research has provided new information on the impact of trauma and sustained early adversity on children’s developing brains (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2020). We know that children’s brains may become wired to respond acutely to any perceived stress. Children may have trouble paying attention and following directions, and they may act out in class. While these findings have challenging implications in the classroom, they reflect how children often adapt to their environments. This important science is increasing awareness among educators about the various ways trauma affects child development. This awareness has also given rise to trauma-sensitive practices and approaches to teaching and learning. When educators implement these practices and approaches, they provide their students with a safe and supportive learning environment where children can learn the skills to lessen the emotional burden of trauma. Creating a Resilience-Focused Classroom In the wake of the pandemic, children are coming to school with levels of trauma, stress, and anxiety on a scale we have never seen. As an educator, you likely have your share of stressors in your life, too. You were drawn to this profession not only because of your desire to teach, but also because of your empathy and concern for children’s well-being. In many cases, the emotional load of feeling incapable of helping a child who is struggling may also impact you negatively. Put simply, their trauma can become your trauma—by nature of your empathy. But take heart, the same coping skills and resilience strategies you develop in your students will also be helpful to you. We give you this book to spark a resilience-informed movement in education— practices and strategies that support children’s capacities to thrive in the face of adversities, large and small. Because studies (Walsh, 1996, 2003, 2006) document the positive influence of significant relationships on a child’s resilience capacities, we also offer this book as a guide for building partnerships and support systems with families and communities. In your work with a child’s family, you may speak explicitly to the skills you are trying to foster that promote resilience and emphasize that families can also support these skills. Many of the activities we give in the book are ones that families can do at home

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with children. We are convinced that our children will be stronger when we cultivate effective partnerships with families and communities that equip children with the skills to be more resourceful when dealing with the hardships that life may present. We have developed a framework that we will revisit throughout the book to give you a structure for understanding the capacities and related skills we want students to develop and for communicating with and supporting families in fostering resilience. The framework provides a map of five key resilience-promoting capacities and ways to foster those capacities as you go about your day-to-day teaching: 1. Developing supportive relationships 2. Forming positive self-identities 3. Supporting curiosity and motivation 4. Engaging in flexible thinking 5. Demonstrating altruism How to Navigate This Book This book is for educators like you who want to help their students thrive in our ever-evolving world, equipped to deal with the challenges life will inevitably bring. It is organized to help you weave resilience skill-building into the daily life of your classroom. Chapter 1 takes a deep dive into resilience. Each chapter that follows focuses on one of the five resilience-promoting capacities that help ensure that all children are able to thrive. Each chapter begins with a description of the capacity and key principles related to it. We then share actions that you can do in your classroom to help children develop that capacity. From there, we offer a section that details the negative outcomes a child might experience when he or she does not receive support or learn to respond to adversities and trauma. We also share how you can develop the capacity through your literacy instruction. We provide teacher-approved routines and activities for grades K–2 and 3–5 to help your students develop supportive relationships, form positive self-identities, build curiosity and motivation, engage in flexible thinking, and demonstrate altruism.

Introduction 15

W e believe that literacy can be used to foster resilience in children and families. As we’ve seen in our work with the Yale Child Study Center- Scholastic Collaborative for Child & Family Resilience, the more children learn about the world through stories and reading, the more opportunities they have to grow and flourish. It’s a simple but profound link—literacy to resilience to better health. As we look at the factors related to child and family resilience, we are focused on some of the same questions that you have: • Why do some children seem to thrive despite adversity in their lives? • Can we develop capacities among children for greater resilience? • In what ways can educators, who aren’t trained mental health professionals, help children and families cope with adversity?

The Yale Child Study Center-Scholastic Collaborative for Child & Family Resilience is a partnership with a mission—to give children the skills they need to flourish and reach their fullest potential. Researchers and medical professionals together with publishing teams develop literacy and health- based intervention resources for children and families to

YALE CHILD STUDY CENTER+SCHOLASTIC

address developmental and mental health concerns. These two organizations are united in the firm belief that literacy promotes health and well-being. Default Color

The Resilience Scale Many people imagine resilience as a rubber band—when we are stretched or stressed, we can bounce back. That metaphor assumes resilience resides within the individual person. It inherently puts the burden of that elasticity on the individual child or adult. The FrameWorks Institute and the Palix Foundation, consulting with Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, have introduced a metaphor that aptly conveys the principles of child resilience (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2015). Their Resilience Scale model, adapted by the Palix Foundation, shows a scale with the child as the fulcrum in the middle.

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The Resilience Scale: Negative Experiences vs. Positive Supports

When children have more positive supports than negative experiences, they are more likely to experience positive outcomes. (Resilience Scale adapted with permission of the Palix Foundation)

Red Boxes: Negative Experiences The red boxes on the left side of the scale represent negative experiences that can weigh on a child’s life, tipping it toward negative outcomes. Think about the children in your classroom and some of the adverse circumstances they face in and out of school. The child who comes to school hungry. The child who has just moved homes… again. The child who may be experiencing bullying or witnessing violence at home. The negative experiences might include exposure to poverty or hunger or any of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) that have been cataloged, such as individual or community violence, substance use at home, and homelessness. Or they might include the stress that COVID-19 has placed on their lives.

Defining Resilience Resilience is the ability to respond positively in the face of adversity. Children develop skills

and capacities that help them become more resilient with

the guidance of caring adults and other social supports. By cultivating safe and supportive relationships and resources and nurturing internal coping skills, we can create optimal conditions for children to weather life’s adversities.

Green Boxes: Positive Supports The green boxes on the right side of the scale represent the

positive supports in a child’s world, tipping the scale toward positive outcomes. Imagine again the children in your classroom. What keeps them going when they

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 19

are facing challenges in their lives? What lifts them up when they are down? To whom and where can they go for help? These resources include caring relationships, healthy schools, and access to healthcare among many others. The more the scale is weighted toward the positive, the more the child is protected from the negative factors in his or her world. As an educator, you can likely do little to remove the red boxes from the negative side of the scale. You can’t single-handedly improve a child’s out-of-school environment or cure an illness. But often, you can provide some of the counterbalancing green boxes on the positive side. Indeed, your caring attention and the classroom climate you foster can be a green box in and of itself. And even more often, one of the biggest green boxes you can provide is by being a positive presence in a child’s life. School has the potential to be an incredible support for children if it provides a safe, supportive environment with adults who are consistently present and compassionate. At the same time, we cannot take for granted that schools always provide only green boxes. School is sometimes a place where a child feels bullied, undermined, or less-than. Class can be a place where a child feels anxious, stressed, and unsuccessful. In fact, the school shutdowns and reopenings during COVID-19 revealed that some children found their stress and anxiety was alleviated when they were home. For others, school closures meant they were removed from their support system and they suffered. When a child in your class is exhibiting anxiety or depression, or when you learn about outside adversities, consider all the ways the child’s school experience might be contributing red or green boxes to his or her scale. Shifting the Fulcrum: Resilience-Promoting Skills Shifting the fulcrum is one more fundamental way to make a child’s scale tip toward a positive outcome—which is the core objective of this book. When we provide children with the kind of resilience-promoting skills that this book will explore in depth, we enable them to shift the fulcrum of their scale, making it easier for the positive supports to outweigh the negative experiences. As you improve a child’s social, emotional, communication, and executive function skills, you build his or her internal resilience-promoting capacities. As an individual’s fulcrum shifts, the red boxes are more easily offset by the green.

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The Resilience Scale: Shifting the Fulcrum

IMPROVE SKILLS AND ABILITIES

Notice that when the fulcrum shifts left (i.e., the child has increased his or her capacity for resilience), this helps offset the weight of the negative experiences.

The metaphor of the Resilience Scale illustrates how resilience works: External, environmental, and individual factors come together to offer the best chance to tip a child’s scale toward positive lifelong outcomes. It is important to understand that an individual’s scale is not static. The red and green boxes change, and the fulcrum shifts over time and with educational and life experiences. Communicating About Resilience We find the Resilience Scale to be a powerful advocacy tool you can use to communicate with any stakeholder: a fellow educator, an administrator, a policymaker, a family member, or a student. The scale metaphor helps us frame resilience as being influenced by outside factors and fostered by internal capacities. This understanding shifts the burden of weathering adversity from the child to the community. It helps us avoid the damaging implication that some students can just bounce back naturally while others cannot. Framing resilience in this way can help stakeholders understand that they can contribute to a solution that supports the child.

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 21

When you think about and communicate about resilience, bear in mind not just what it is, but what it is not. The chart that follows helps clarify some common misconceptions.

What Resilience Is Not

What Resilience Is

Resilience can be developed over time.

Something you’re born with

Resilience may evolve, grow, lessen, and fluctuate with different life circumstances. Resilience is a set of skills and capacities that can be nurtured, learned, and developed. Providing supportive relationships and social supports is the responsibility of the caring adults in a child’s world. The ability to weather adversity through life’s ups and downs, as with a scale The ability to adapt to stress and adversity that all people experience The ability to seek and receive help from others

A fixed, unchanging trait

An internal characteristic

An individual’s responsibility

The ability to bounce back, like a rubber band

The absence of stress or adversity

The ability to cope on your own without help

An ongoing process of growth and development

A one-time achievement

The ability to view a situation realistically and maintain a reasonably hopeful outlook

The ability to always be optimistic, no matter the circumstances

The Resilience Scale in Action To think about the scale in real life, imagine this scenario: A new student has just walked into your third-grade classroom mid-November. You review her records, which reveal that she has attended two different poorly funded schools this academic year alone. The vice principal fills you in on a challenging situation at home: Her father recently lost his job, the only source of income for the family. The family has had to stay with different relatives until the financial situation stabilizes. You might expect that this child would not do well in school and that she might show several maladaptive behaviors, including either being withdrawn or oppositional and

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disruptive. But you notice that she has some strengths and, even with all that is going on in her life, she responds well to you—she has some relationship-building skills in place. You see that she is curious, she wants to learn, she makes friends, and despite all that she is struggling with, she often thinks about others. One day you see her stop what she is doing to help a classmate struggling to understand a new project. Her resilience scale is clearly weighted toward positive outcomes. You ask yourself: How has this child sustained these important skills in the face of all the turbulence she has been facing? How can you help her continue to use and strengthen these skills? As you help her, can you do something for the other students in your room that would help them develop similar skills? Can teaching these skills be integrated into your already packed schedule? When you look closely at a student’s experiences and behaviors, consider how these would appear on the Resilience Scale.

? ?

IMPROVE SKILLS AND ABILITIES

What are the child’s red boxes? What are the known green boxes? Ask yourself questions such as the following: • How can my classroom be a safe and supportive environment? (This gives all of the children in your classroom a “green box.”) • How can I become a crucial, supportive, and caring adult presence in this child’s life? • How can I help move this child’s fulcrum by helping her to build resilience- promoting skills and capacities?

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 23

The Resilience Framework We rely on a framework for thinking about resilience-promoting skills based on the ongoing research and experience of the Yale Child Study Center-Scholastic Collaborative for Child & Family Resilience. The Resilience Framework identifies the core capacities that support resilience and help move a child’s fulcrum. The framework also offers specific skills and literacy strategies that help develop those capacities in children. The framework is, in essence, a map of important resilience-promoting capacities to observe in your students and to provide practical ways to foster those skills as you go about your day-to-day teaching: (1) developing supportive relationships; (2) forming positive self-identities; (3) building curiosity and motivation; (4) engaging flexible thinking; and (5) demonstrating altruism.

Developing Strong Relationships

Forming Positive Self-Identities

Building Curiosity and Motivation

Engaging in Flexible Thinking

Demonstrating Altruism

Act for the benefit of your family, friends, and community.

Welcome new information and ideas and think creatively.

Be curious about the world around you and motivated to learn.

Have a strong sense of who you are and develop confidence.

Form strong connections

with people who can support you.

To think about how these capacities come into play to foster resilience, let’s focus on a particular child. Think of a student who has come to you facing many challenges, whom you’ve wanted desperately to help—one of the many children whom you recognize has potential and you think about even after the workday ends. Here, we’ll talk about a child named Hendrix.

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LOOKING AT RESILIENCE: Hendrix’s Story

Five-year-old Hendrix was moving with his family to a new city. As he prepared, he peppered his teacher at the school he was leaving with questions: Would he make new friends? What would school be like in the new location? Would his teacher be nice? Would he be able to eat his favorite foods? Was there a library there with his favorite book series? Was there a playground nearby? His resilience-informed teacher understood that this move was a major stressor for Hendrix and tried to offer support. She thought about how she could help reinforce some of Hendrix’s strengths in ways that would help him weather this change and thrive in his new town. She helped him write a list of all his questions and promised that together they would try to find out answers and record them in a journal. In this way, she supported his curiosity. She asked him to think about what he would like the new friends

he would make to know about him. She helped him write an All About Me letter to share with new friends, which reinforced his sense of identity. She also asked his classmates to draw pictures and write notes for him to take with him. In this way, she helped the whole class develop empathy and altruism. She also told him that she was always going to remember him and would love to hear from him after he moved. In this way, she reinforced supportive relationships. These are just a few examples of how a resilience-informed teacher can take intentional steps to tip a child’s scale toward positive outcomes. Hendrix will surely have challenges with the move and may have a rocky adjustment. But he will enter that challenge with a few tools and the knowledge that his former teacher and classmates care for him and will miss him as he faces his new adventures ahead.

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 25

Resilience-Promoting Skills The five capacities identified in the Resilience Framework can be fostered when children have the resilience-building skills shown in the table on the next page. The skills in the framework fall into four broad categories: • Emotional Skills • Social Skills • Communication Skills • Executive Function Skills Take a moment to review the table of skill categories on page 27 and related behaviors you can look for as students interact with one another, with you, and with other school staff members. In which skill areas do your students demonstrate greater capacity? In which might they need more opportunities to develop? For a more in-depth look at these skills, turn to the Resilience Framework on page 28. Notice how the specific skills in each category run across each of the resilience- building capacities. For example, consider the social skill of perspective-taking—the appreciation that you may have a different view or understanding of something

or someone because you’ve had a different experience. You use this skill every day. You might understand that a child is especially irritable because you know that his or her parent has been sick, while others may only see the child as displaying disruptive behaviors. You also use this skill when you read, understanding that a character has a different set of experiences and a different set of knowledge from you, the reader. The chapters that follow highlight practical ways that you can nurture these skills in the classroom through the environment you create and the literacy instruction you design.

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Skills Category

Definition

What to Look For

EMOTIONAL SKILLS

The ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions effectively. This category includes building confidence, regulating emotions, and also recognizing the emotions of others.

Expressing feelings appropriately, identifying emotions in themselves and others, using coping strategies to manage their feelings, seeking help when needed Engaging in cooperative play, showing compassion toward others, resolving conflicts peacefully and respectfully Engaging in group discussions, asking questions, and actively listening to others Setting goals, creating plans to achieve goals, breaking down tasks into manageable steps, managing time effectively, maintaining focus on tasks, persisting through challenges

SOCIAL SKILLS

The ability to form positive relationships with others

and to navigate social situations effectively

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

The ability to express oneself clearly and effectively, and to listen and understand others The ability to set goals, make decisions, problem solve, and plan for the future. These skills help us make sense of the world and are foundational to taking wise action in our lives.

EXECUTIVE FUNCTION SKILLS

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 27

The Resilience Framework

Resilience Capacities & Skills

Supportive Relationships

Self- Identity

Curiosity and Motivation

Flexible Thinking

Altruism

EMOTIONAL SKILLS

Building Self- Awareness and Confidence

•

Recognizing Emotions

•

Managing Emotions

•

Empathizing

•

SOCIAL SKILLS

Respecting Others

•

Working Collaboratively

•

Asking for and Receiving Help

•

Perspective- Taking

•

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Communicating Effectively

•

Active Listening

•

Storytelling

•

Reframing

•

EXECUTIVE FUNCTION SKILLS

Making Decisions

•

Developing Persistence

•

Solving Problems

•

Looking Forward

28 The Educator’s Guide to Building Child & Family Resilience

Using Literacy to Build Resilience We believe it’s most effective to incorporate the resilience-promoting skills into the instruction and activities that are already happening throughout your school day. For example, you can use math instruction to foster persistence and problem- solving. History can be a great vehicle for building empathy and perspective-taking. In science class, forming a hypothesis, testing, evaluating, and drawing conclusions are all connected to executive function. But for us, literacy instruction is the most extraordinary vehicle for developing resilience-promoting skills. On a fundamental level, narrative and storytelling are essential to the human condition (Green et al., 2006). Having a sense of origin, of beginning, middle, and end, helps define where we come from, who we are, and where we are going. On a developmental level, literacy can help children develop self-awareness, emotional skills, and empathy. Reading about the lives of characters

Kids Demonstrating Resilience: The I Survived Series Few children’s book series provide clearer

about these books and how the young people featured in them demonstrated the skills needed to survive such challenging experiences.

examples of resilience among young people than author Lauren Tarshis’s popular I Survived series. These stories from history, some in graphic novel form and many available in Spanish, feature young characters whose resilience gets them through some of the most memorable and terrifying events in history, including the destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, the 1967 attack of the Grizzlies, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, and many more. Check the Scholastic website to read more

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 29

broadens a child’s understanding of himself or herself and others; story plots develop critical-thinking skills and can model problem-solving and persistence. Talking about what they are reading provides a safe way for children to explore their own feelings and to discuss their own experiences. The Resilience Framework places a special emphasis on using storytelling and narrative to develop the different resilience-promoting skills. From journaling to creative writing to discussion groups, we know that providing children opportunities to tell their stories and express their unique perspectives is key to supporting them through challenging times. To this end, we include a few ideas here for getting started with storytelling.

Weaving Storytelling Into Your Day Create a storytelling routine: Set aside a designated time for children to share their stories about what has happened during their day. This could be during circle time or morning meeting or at the close of the day. The goal is to honor their stories with few to no interruptions. Incorporate digital storytelling: Encourage students to bring their stories to life using digital tools. Consider using digital story platforms that allow children to plot stories, animate, narrate, and add soundtracks to create digital stories. Write what matters most: Give children regular opportunities to write about or draw what matters to them. When children have time each week to consistently and freely write about topics they care about, they develop the habit of

expressing themselves more clearly. This writing should not be evaluated. Set aside time for children to share their stories with their classmates if they like. Children can offer feedback to one another when requested, with guidance on how to give specific and helpful responses. Here are a few prompts: • One thing that you did well… • I learned this from your writing… • The part that I find fascinating is…

30 The Educator’s Guide to Building Child & Family Resilience

Encourage Family Storytelling Families are steeped in the rich stories and oral traditions that are an integral part of many cultures, particularly in Black and Brown communities. Dinner time or other family time can be optimal for families to share the oral traditions of who they are. Think of different ways you can encourage family storytelling. You may want to: • Send home prompts that encourage family discussions about topics students have been talking or writing about in school. • Ask families to make digital recordings of family stories that they would like to share with the class. • Invite families to send in artifacts that are important to their family and have children talk about these artifacts with their classmates. With permission, you may want to put together a collection of family stories that can be enjoyed by other classrooms. Summary of Key Points • An individual’s capacity for resilience in the face of challenge is determined both by environmental factors and the skills he or she has acquired to manage his or her response to challenges—this dynamic is described with a Resilience Scale model. • Using this model as a frame, educators and caregivers have the opportunity to 1) create environments that add more positive factors (green boxes) to the positive outcome side of the scale; and 2) help children develop skills that shift the fulcrum to help offset negative experiences. • The Resilience Framework features five resilience-promoting capacities that educators and other adults can help students actively develop. When the capacity for resilience grows, we can shift the fulcrum of the Resilience Scale in a way that helps us achieve positive outcomes. The chapters that follow explore each of the resilience-promoting capacities in detail. Our hope is that as you apply the Resilience Framework to your daily practice and learn how to help children move the fulcrum on the Resilience Scale, you will be better able to answer the Maasai greeting, Kasserian Ingera ? or “How are the children?” with “The children are well and we did what was needed.”

Chapter 1 • What Is Resilience? 31

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