Create resilience in babies and small children
Resilience is all the rage nowadays when talking of children’s emotional health. And yes, it is a very important quality to create in a child.
But truly, the way in which children become resilient little and big people is quite simple and very basic. To become resilient a child needs to have a healthy attachment to their main caregiver. And their main caregiver needs to be emotionally and healthily attached to them. No more, no less. Seems simple? Well most of us probably are resilient enough because we had good enough parenting. There is a wide range of emotionally healthy parenting – so don’t get anxious!
We sometimes talk of the resilience of babies and children. Saying that they seem to be able to survive all sorts of difficult experiences. That they forget traumatic happenings. But without the first attachment creating that vital resilience this is not really always true (or perhaps never).
Babies and small children need their caregiver to mediate the world for them. Without the mediation of difficult experiences backed up by resilience a tiny child cannot easily process difficult experiences. Instead they learn defences – a sort of sweeping things under the mat or covering over the tears and scars with sticky tape. Defences created in baby and childhood can create emotional difficulties and illnesses like depression and even psychosis in childhood and adulthood.
But more usually they are really little neurosis! And all of us have some and some of us rather more than some. And all of us will have created defences of some kind or another – perfect just isn’t human. And we need the resilience created when we were tiny to ensure that these less damaging defences don’t ever become damaging!
So many of our small children are children of parents or of parents without sufficient emotional health to attach in an emotionally healthy way to their children. Sadly. (I blame migrant labour to a large extent in South Africa)
We see our school leavers – they do have plans – often plans far beyond their academic attainments. When reality bites: as of course it will, too many of our young people do not have the resilience to either persevere and fight and fall and get up and fight on again to attain their dreams. Too many just give up. Falling and getting up again is just too hard for an un - resilient person.
Because that is what resilience does for us; it helps us to persevere against all odds...
So that is one of the reasons we need good, full of play, pre-schools. Play in a secure, supportive and loving environment builds emotional health! Viva Play!