7 C’s of Building Resilience in Children

Today’s children encounter more mental health challenges than any previous generation. They may face issues such as anxiety, depression, attention problems, the temptations of technology, and excessive screen time. Additionally, they deal with pressures in school, bullying, and cyberbullying. These factors can be overwhelming for both children and their families, especially during early childhood and the formative years.

As daunting as these challenges may be, it is good to know that we can be optimistic and hopeful for our children and to nurture a positive outlook as they learn to manage life’s challenges.

There are practical strategies that can help your child do better in school, build successful relationships, improve their mental health, improve optimism, and build problem-solving. It’s not too good to be true! This article lays out tangible things parents and caregivers can do to make a positive difference.

Researchers began studying resilience over 70 years ago. We have learned that resilience can help individuals overcome the stressors arising from life’s challenges. Whereas childhood trauma and toxic stress can threaten one’s physical and emotional health, resilience has been shown to overcome those medical risks. Resilience can improve coping skills, bolster confidence, support emotional regulation skills, and enhance social skills, leading to healthier relationships. Resilience also improves creativity and problem-solving and enhances one’s flexibility and adaptability, supporting lifelong mental health.

So, What is Resilience in Children?

First, it is essential to know what resilience is not. Resilience is not a genetic trait that you inherit or an attribute that is only found in a fortunate few. We are all born with the ability to be resilient, and we can all learn to become more resilient. Additionally, when parents teach resilience-building skills to their children, they become more resilient themselves.

Resilience is the ability to face a challenge, manage or overcome it, and become strengthened rather than defeated by the process.

Think of resilience as a mindset, a way of life. Resilient people do not perceive typical, everyday challenges in life as overwhelming. Instead, they approach obstacles with some optimism and problem-solving mindset, which helps them overcome their roadblocks and supports confidence, building positive mental health and resilience.

Many people like to describe resilience as the ability to bounce back. (photo of bouncing basketball)

Think of your child as a playground ball. Their resilience is the air inside that ball. A life challenge or stressor may occur, causing that ball to hit the ground. The ball becomes flattened and misshapen. If there is no air of resilience inside that ball, it loses its energy and cannot bounce back. But if we add the skills of emotional resilience to that ball, not only can your child withstand that blow, but they can also rebound and bounce back, ready for another play and another day. Our job as parents, teachers, coaches, or medical providers is to build our children’s resilience day by day, strengthening emotional regulation and coping skills and equipping them to face future challenges.

Resilience doesn’t prevent life’s problems, but it does provide the emotional tools for solving and overcoming them.

So, how do we build resilience in children?

Kenneth Ginsburg, M.D., is a professor of pediatrics and one of the leading experts in building resilience in children. Dr. Ginsburg reviewed the resilience literature and organized its features into seven integral components. He cleverly identified these components through alliteration, making them easier for us to remember. Dr. Ginsburg calls these features “The Seven C’s of Resilience.” Each of the Seven C’s is unique, but they are all interrelated. Consider the Seven C’s to be the crucial building blocks necessary for fostering lifelong resilience and mental health.

The Seven C’s of Resilience

1. Competence

Competence is the ability to deal with everyday situations effectively. Competence is built over time through experience. Everyone has something that they are good at. As parents, we should strive to identify our child’s strengths, label them, and then reinforce them by providing opportunities to practice and expand these strengths. Competence is not simply limited to a physical or mental skill, such as a sport, a musical instrument, or academic success. Competence can also be found in kindness to others, effective communication, or being a supportive, collaborative team member. Even a child being a good helper around the house or a good cook shows competence.

Parental strategies to build competence in a child:

• Watch your child daily and identify their strengths. Name the strength when you see it, and repeat the process when you see it again. Provide opportunities for your child to repeat the activity, practice this strength, and build on it to strengthen problem-solving skills and confidence.
• Identify your own priorities in conversations. Do you listen to your child without planning what you will say next? Do you focus on what your child does well, or do you talk about what they haven’t yet accomplished?
• Allow them to make their own decisions and come to their own conclusions. Let them make mistakes. Failure is a great teacher if it is allowed to proceed to eventual mastery through persistence and perseverance.

2. Confidence

Confidence, which often comes from one’s competence, is the strong belief in oneself. Confidence is not built through pep talks or telling children they are special, though these are still beneficial. Confidence grows when parents recognize their child’s strengths and encourage them to take on new opportunities. Confidence is built through daily practice, trying out new skills. Confidence will come when a child believes that they are safe and secure enough to try new things. Patience, persistence, and perseverance can be taught and encouraged with positivity and repetition, supporting emotional resilience and healthy risk-taking.

Parental strategies to build confidence in a child:

• As described above, identify your child’s strengths and label them. Practice these things to build confidence to try new challenges. Parents can be role models in demonstrating optimism and a positive attitude.
• Recognize failure for what it is: an opportunity to learn and grow. Emphasize the word “yet.” Try explaining to them, “Sarah, you haven’t built that Lego tower yet, but I bet if you keep working on it, you’ll get it.” Celebrate minor victories to reinforce effort and perseverance.
• Catch your child being good and label their behavior: generous, helpful, empathetic, etc.
• When praising your child, be sure to label what you appreciate. You might say, “You did such a nice job being helpful.”, “Thanks for quieting down.”, and “Great job helping your sister!” This praise strengthens emotional intelligence and confidence.

3. Connection

Many psychologists feel that connection with others might be one of the most important of the Seven C’s for building resilience in children. This involves developing meaningful relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and other supportive adults. Children with close ties to family, friends, and schoolmates are more secure and grounded. This provides a safety net and an essential sense of belonging. Relationships with non-parent adults who are supportive and nurturing are also very beneficial for building resilience in children.

We want children to feel this way: “Someone on my team will help me and watch out for me.”

Parental strategies to build connection:

• Family rituals are a great way to build connections, such as family mealtimes, game nights, holidays, or family traditions that strengthen positive relationships and create a supportive environment for children to feel safe and valued.
• Teaching and modeling communication: Identify specific times for screen-free interaction. Teach and model: listen first, then reply. Everyone gets an opportunity to express their opinion.
• Bedtime ritual: “3 Roses and a Thorn.” Review the day by listing three good things that happened during the day, and one challenging moment, helping children process both positive and negative emotions.
• Connections with peers. It is good for children to learn how to decide whether a peer is a positive and healthy influence.
• Encourage connection with other safe adults in the community. This may involve neighbors, teachers, coaches, relatives, or other members of the community. Building this village supports children’s emotional resilience and helps families feel supported as well.

4. Character

Children with a strong moral compass and a fundamental sense of right and wrong are more likely to make wise choices and to have self-respect, self-worth, and confidence. A commitment to integrity gives young people a foundation for making smart, safe decisions. They are also more likely to demonstrate a caring attitude toward others.

Strategies to build character:

• Find ways to help your child understand how their behavior affects other people. Model empathy and teach what it means to care about others.
• Allow your child to find their own values when appropriate. Allow them to consider right versus wrong in different situations and over time.
• Consider how to help them develop a sense of the importance of family and the role of family members in supporting one another.
• Consider how to help them develop a sense of the importance of community.
• Consider how to help them develop a sense of spirituality as a source of guidance and meaning.

5. Contribution

Contribution involves the idea that the world is a better place because they are in it. Personal contribution can lead to a sense of purpose, which is both very motivating and rewarding. Acts of contribution can enhance a child’s own competence and character. Children who contribute may receive external rewards, including gratitude, praise, and respect from others. They may also feel internal rewards, such as self-worth, satisfaction, and purpose.

Parental strategies to build contribution:

• Have conversations to discuss that many people in the world have less access to resources, safety, or opportunity, helping children build empathy and perspective.
• Encourage contribution of ideas and thoughts: family decision-making, school committees, or service groups, allowing children to practice problem-solving skills and collaboration.
• Model generosity in everyday actions so children learn the value of helping others.
• Have conversations about how “we can make the world a better place.”
• Create opportunities for contributions: community clean-ups, food drives, and recycling opportunities, which help children feel capable, connected, and purposeful.

6. Coping

Coping with stress is a lifelong challenge. Learning positive coping strategies builds resilience and protects against unsafe or worrisome behavior.

Individuals who possess a variety of healthy coping strategies and emotional regulation skills will be less likely to turn to unhealthy quick fixes when stressed. Healthy coping strategies can be taught and role-modeled, including patience, persistence, optimism, humor, faith, music, dance, art, and exercise.

Parental strategies to build coping:

• Identify your own stress and examine your behavior in those circumstances. Do you model positive coping behaviors? If you don’t know deep breathing, mindfulness exercises, or grounding techniques, learn them and teach them to your child at their developmental level as coping skills for kids.
• On stressful days, do you discuss your challenges and problem-solve out loud? An example might be, “Today we need to get you to rehearsal, go to the grocery, and get to the bank. We don’t have time for all these things today. I will drop you off at your meeting and then do the shopping. I will ask [another caregiver] to go to the bank for us today.” This models stress management for children through calm decision-making.
• Creativity is a building block for problem-solving. If your child is young, do you leave enough time for creative play, Legos, or art? If they are older, do you encourage creative expression through creative writing, singing, playing music, or dancing?

7. Control

Children need to know what they can control and what things are beyond their control. Those who learn how to control the outcome of their decisions are more likely to be resilient and bounce back from challenges. Parents need to allow their child opportunities to control their environment and make their own decisions rather than making all decisions for the child. Younger children can learn to control their emotions and behavior, even when other factors may control some outcomes. Resilient children learn this internal self-control, which gives them opportunities to discuss and negotiate external control factors.

Parental strategies to build control:

• Teach your young child strategies to control emotions. Review coping strategies such as deep breathing, mindfulness exercises, or grounding techniques, and teach them to your child at their developmental level.
• Self-advocacy: control of one’s environment. The ability to effectively communicate and negotiate respectfully, supporting confidence and problem-solving skills.
• Communication and Negotiation. This technique builds skills allowing a child to control their environment. Remember, a successful negotiation is one where both sides win.
  • Use words politely with respect, without whining, crying, or repeatedly complaining.
  • Use words persuasively, with explanations and emphasis on the “why.”
  • Respect the answer. We don’t always get what we want, and no means no. Accept “no” calmly. Parents should try to end many negotiations without using the word no.
• Create a family environment that encourages talking, listening, and sharing in a safe space. Respect for each other must be modeled and encouraged.
• Family meetings promote practice communication and build a child’s competence. Give your child opportunities to exert control over their environment and build confidence by sharing their thoughts and feelings.
• Young people begin their lives with adults providing rules and limits for safety. Boundaries should be clearly stated and enforced. Over time, by being responsible, making good choices, and being trustworthy, youth will be rewarded with more privileges and freedoms. In time, they develop healthy control over the direction of their lives, supporting lifelong resilience.

Building Resilience Happens Daily

Our world is complex and challenging to raise a child, but it need not be overwhelming for parents. We are confident that you have what it takes to raise a resilient child. The suggestions above have been offered so that parents may feel empowered with resilience-building tools for their parenting toolbox.

With these tools, we can transform daily challenges into opportunities for growth. Most of these activities or suggestions are things you already do each day or can easily add to your daily routines. Resilience is not built through lectures or reading a book. It is built day by day, in the everyday experiences of life and consistent efforts in teaching children how to cope, adapt, and grow.

Some real-world examples of how to handle challenges:

• Learning to ride a bike: “I’m sorry you fell. Look how well you handled it. You are strong!”
• Struggles with homework: “You are working hard on that. Don’t give up. You will get it.”
• Squabbles with friends: “How do you think you can work it out?”
• Anxiety: “I understand that you are upset. Let’s take a few deep breaths to reset, and then we can talk about it.”

Building resilience in small, bite-sized chunks is very doable. The benefits of raising resilient children are proven and their positive mental health will become very rewarding over time. If you feel you need support with building resilience in your child, or you have specific concerns, reach out to your pediatrician for a specific visit on behavioral health.

References:

The Seven C’s: The Essential Building Blocks of Resilience | Fostering Resilience. https://fosteringresilience.com/7cs.php

The Impact of Positive Childhood Experience: A Systematic Review Focused on Children and Adolescents. 2.28.25. Sousa, Machado, Cunha.