How To Promote Resilience In Adolescents

The ability to recover from negative events is essential during adolescence.

It is a fact that problems and difficult situations cannot always be avoided, which is also not recommended. Adolescence is a particularly complicated stage, so it is important to develop the ability to face adversities and know how to recover after them. Read on and discover how to build resilience in teens.

What is resilience?

The origin of the study of resilience in the social sciences comes from the efforts to know the risk of children in developing psychopathologies  due to mental illnesses of the parents, prenatal problems, interpersonal conflicts, among others.

The results of these studies show that the development of resilience helps to successfully cope with stress and adverse events.

Resilience is a complex concept and there is no clear consensus among experts on its definition. However, there is some agreement on one issue: resilience means effectively dealing with risk and adversity.

In this sense, the most accurate definition that we have found to date is the one proposed by psychology professor Norman Garmerzy, who defines resilience as the ability to recover and maintain adaptive behavior after abandonment or a stressful event. In short, resilience is the ability to recover after difficult times, and adapt to adversity, even learning from them.

How to develop resilience in adolescents?

All adolescents can build resilience  through learning planning and social skills, developing healthy self-esteem, and establishing positive thinking:

• Learning social skills. Knowing how to make and keep friends, knowing how to solve conflicts and knowing how to work in a team are some skills that lead to developing resilience. In addition, if the adolescent is able to establish relationships and connections in his environment, he will have more opportunities to build good relationships.
• Establish positive thinking habits. Resilient people think rationally and try to look on the bright side of adversity. Stay and keep going even when things are bad. Adolescence is the stage in which we learn that difficult situations and problems are part of life.
  

• Develop a healthy self-esteem. This is key to laying the foundation for resilience. In this way, the adolescent respects himself and others. Therefore, he believes that others should treat him with respect as well, and he will be less vulnerable to bullying .
• Set goals, objectives and plans. Resilience means feeling confident about yourself. Knowing how to organize and develop planning skills keeps you ready for the hard work. To do this, adolescents must enhance their strengths and know their limitations.

Resilience in adolescence: why is it important?

A resilient adolescent is not only capable of facing difficult situations and knowing how to recover after them, but he will also be able to adapt to the different adversities and obstacles that he will encounter in his life.

It is essential that young people are able to develop resilience and adaptability from an early age in order to face a society as competitive as ours.