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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
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