ResilienceA workshop delivered by Secure Start Principal Psychologist

Colby Pearce

22 June 2011

Secure Start® 2011

That which does not kill me makes me stronger.(Friedrich Nietzsche)

Courage seems to me the whole pre-history of man. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Adversity

It is a feature of the life of every child.

Some children demonstrate persistence in the face of adversity.

Other children shy away from adversity.

Those children who persist in their endeavours in the face of adversity learn that it can be tolerated.

Mastery

Those children who tolerate adversity and those who succeed in their endeavours under adverse conditions experience mastery.

Mastery experiences are critical to the development of a perception of personal competence and capacity to influence personal outcomes.

Resilience

Psychological strength, or resilience, is that quality of the child that enables them to persist in the face of adversity and recover from frustration and failure.

Resilience strengthens a child and enables them to try new experiences and accept challenges.

Resilience sustains a child through hardship and supports the realisation of dreams and aspirations.

Resilience is critical to a child’s development and to them leading a productive, successful and satisfying life.

The Dilemma

The promotion of resilience is a universal concern of adults with a caring concern for children.

However, just as universal is the concern for shielding children from physical and emotional distress that can arise in conditions of adversity.

These seemingly competing concerns can be a source of confusion and heartache for those who have the best interests of children at heart and have the potential to cloud their vision of what is in a child’s best interests.

In this presentation I will explain how loving, nurturing and protecting children actually enhances their resilience.

Promoting Resilience

The professional and lay literature contain a plethora of factors that have been identified in resilient people and, hence, are thought to be characteristics of resilience.

My own experience in working with children who have experienced overwhelming adversity in their life, together with my reading of what researchers and other professionals have to say on the matter, has led me to the conclusion that there are three key variables that impact directly on a child’s resilience; arousal, attachment and needs provision.

Arousal

Arousal refers to the level of activity of the body’s nervous systems.

Arousal goes up and down during the day, depending on a person’s mood, what they are doing and what is happening in their environment.

Arousal generally is lowest when we are asleep and highest when we are in a state of high emotion.

In ordinary circumstances, arousal is thought to go up and down within a regular range, which varies from person to person.

Each person’s range of arousal is affected by genetic factors, early exposure to stress, ongoing maintaining factors, and the interaction of these.

Arousal continued . . .

Arousal is directly implicated in a child’s capacity to learn and in their performance of daily tasks.

When arousal is too low or too high, human beings are physiologically incapable of performing at their best.

Mastery experiences are less likely and the child is vulnerable to repeated failure in their efforts to complete daily tasks. The result is that their self-confidence is undermined and their ability to cope with adversity is reduced.

If we can maintain a child’s arousal within an optimal range they are more likely to perform at their best, to have mastery experiences and to feel capable and competent when faced with adversity.

In order to promote resilience in children we need to understand the relationship between arousal and performance, and to implement strategies to maintain optimal levels of arousal.

More on Arousal . . .

Caregiving that supports optimal levels of arousal strikes a balance between encouraging acceptance of risks and protection from potential harm, such as occurs when a parent stands at the base of the ladder while their child negotiates a slippery slide, or holds their child’s hand while they cross a busy road.

Caregivers who support and encourage children to accept risks and challenges, while protecting them from the debilitating and disempowering effects of prolonged emotional distress and repeated or overwhelming failure, facilitate experiences of mastery that are essential to resilience.

Attachment

In order to feel empowered to accept challenges, children need to be able to trust that the world is generally a safe place and that others, particularly adults in a caregiving role, can be trusted and depended upon to assist them when they need it.

The expectation that others will be ready and prepared to assist them is profoundly influenced by the quality of the relationships children develop with their caregivers during infancy and early childhood.

Referred to as attachment, these relationships also play a significant role in the development of children’s beliefs about their personal competency and worth, and therefore, play a key role in the development of resilience.

Attachment Continued . . .

The quality of attachment relationships is influenced by three key aspects of caregiving experienced by infants:

1. Accessibility

2. Sensitive Responsiveness, and

3. Affective Attunement.

More on Attachment . . . Accessibility refers the extent to which a caregiver is available to the

infant in order to provide a caregiving response.

Sensitive responsiveness refers to the extent to which the caregiver accurately reads the infants signals regarding needs that require a caregiving response, and responds to those needs. In responding to the infant in a sensitive way, the caregiver ensures that the infant experiences their needs as being understood and important.

Affective attunement refers to times when the caregiver expresses the same or very similar emotion to that of the infant, such that the infant experiences an emotional union with the caregiver. Affective attunement is often observed during play and when the infant is distressed. Attunement experiences facilitate the caregiver being able to regulate the infant’s emotions until such time as the infant is able to do this for themselves.

Further on Attachment

Providing children with consistent experiences of caregiver accessibility, understanding and attunement supports the development and maintenance of positive expectations about self, others and the world in which they live.

In turn, these expectations enhance children’s capacity to accept challenges and bounce back from failure.

Needs Provision

In order for children to achieve their developmental potential and lead a full and satisfying life, they need to believe that they are able to satisfy needs that are essential to their survival and happiness.

The love, care, acceptance and protection of an adult caregiver who is thought of as better able to cope with the world are examples of needs that, when consistently met, ensure that children survive and thrive.

Needs Provision Continued . . . In the absence of reliable satisfaction of needs that are essential to

their survival and happiness, children become anxious.

Their anxiety activates the parts of the brain that control instinctive survival responses and de-activates those parts of the brain that are responsible for logical thinking, planning, and effective action.

They become demanding and difficult to reason with.

They are typically resistant to having their attention diverted elsewhere.

Gaining satisfaction of their needs becomes the most important objective in the child’s life in that moment – an apparent matter of survival, with the result that they display a restricted range of interest and behaviour until such time that their needs are consistently met.

More on Needs Provision

Consistently demonstrating understanding and responding to children’s real needs, including their need for our love, attention, acceptance and protection, is reassuring to children.

Once reassured that they can rely on us to consistently respond to their needs, children can get on with exploring all that their world offers without experiencing the debilitating and restricting effects of anxiety.

By reducing anxiety and facilitating opportunities for exploration and mastery, reliable and consistent needs provision is a potent resiliency factor.

Addressing Arousal

The Mozart Effect and the role of Music

Addressing Attachment

Involves:

Enriching Understanding

Enriching Accessibility

Enriching Attunement and Affect/Arousal Regulation

Respond to the need as well as the behaviour(Pearce, C.M. (2011). A Short Introduction to Promoting Resilience in Children. London: Jessica Kingsley)

Behaviour Possible Explanation

Need Helpful Responses

Unhelpful Responses

Child refuses to stay in their bed

Separation anxiety and/or insecurity

Reassurance that the caregiver is aware of them, accessible and responsive

Remain Calm. Engage in soothing bedtime rituals. Checking back in with the child before they get out of bed to achieve proximity to the caregiver

Parental Anger and frustration.

Disciplining the child.

Ignoring the child.

Child becomes overly loud and boisterous at a family function.

Child is overstimulated

Soothing and/or opportunities to blow off steam

Temporarily withdrawing the child from the stimulating environment in order to calm/soothe them or provide a release

Yelling at the child to “calm down”

Verbalising Understanding (Pearce, C.M. (2011). A Short Introduction to Promoting Resilience in Children. London: Jessica Kingsley)

Behaviour Possible Reason

Example of an unhelpful or ineffective response

Example of an Understanding response

Example of an effective management response

Child sneaks food from the cupboard

Hungry

Concerned others will eat first

Admonishment and restriction of access to food

I think you must have been hungry

I think you were worries that [others] might eat them all before you did.

Make it a rule that the child must ask for snacks

Divide the available snacks equally into separate containers for each child of the household

Child hits another child

Other child hit first

Anger and disapproval

They must have done something to make you feel really angry

Next time someone does something that makes you feel really angry you should . . .

Enriching AccessibilitySource: Pearce CM (2009), A Short Introduction to Attachment and Attachment Disorder. London: Jessica Kingsley

Verbalising Understanding: I think that you believe that I will forget about you if

we are not always together. I think that you believe I won’t notice or understand

when you really need me/something. You believe that if I don’t do it [get it for you] now I

will forget. You worry that I won’t come back for you. You worry that I don’t like you anymore. You know you have done something wrong and you

worry that I won’t like/love you anymore.

Enriching AccessibilitySource: Pearce CM (2009), A Short Introduction to Attachment and Attachment Disorder. London: Jessica Kingsley

Emotional Refuelling (in reverse)

Enriching Attunement(Pearce, C.M. (2011). A Short Introduction to Promoting Resilience in Children. London: Jessica Kingsley)

Empathy (In order to be heard we first need to listen)

Addressing Needs Provision

Managing Emotional Connectedness

Consistency and Predictability

A Final Comment . . .

Children’s perceptions of themselves are very much influenced by their experience of how others, particularly their main caregivers, perceive them.

When their caregivers predominantly perceive them to be safe and capable, children generally see themselves the same way.

Similarly, when their caregivers predominantly view them as vulnerable and incapable, children will see themselves that way too.

So, have positive expectations of children in your care. It will support their resiliency.

Five ways to promote resilience . . .

1. Take a balanced approach to exposing children to challenging situations, encouraging acceptance of risks while protecting them from potential harm.

2. Be accessible to children. Anticipate their needs and reasonable wishes and respond to them as often as you are able to consistently manage before the child actively seeks to have their need or wish met. Be proactive!

3. Ensure that children experiences their inner world as being understood and important. Observe a child’s nonverbal cues and the situation you are in and say out loud what you believe they are thinking and feeling.

4. Show delight in a child’s achievements and concern at their distress. In doing so you will maintain a supportive emotional connection with the child that guards against them feeling overwhelmed in times of adversity.

5. Believe in a child’s competency so that they will do so too.