Raising resilient children

January 23, 2018

Cecilia Juhlin, a licensed clinical psychologist from Switzerland, trained the Mano Amiga Parents on how how to develop the resiliency of their children. Held from January 9-12, 2018, each day focused on instilling resilience based a child’s developments stage. This helped the parents identify which techniques and strategies were appropriate to the present needs and stage of their child.

The workshops started with a brief introduction of resilience. Resilience was defined in the seminar as the ability to cope or adjust easily with the constant change that an individual goes through as s/he grows up, without any negative effect on that person’s physical, emotional or intellectual state. The level of resiliency of a child may determine the actions that s/he will take when s/he reached adulthood. It has five pillars namely physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual.

Fostering the growth of each pillar will boost the resiliency of a child especially when the emotional and social needs were properly addressed. The importance of constantly talking and asking questions to a kid was also highlighted as these promote thinking. 

Ms. Juhlin highlighted the big No’s – which include placing unnecessary heavy pressure on their children to achieve high grades and, not allowing playing time. Ms. Juhlin emphasized that a good balance of work and play will develop the mental and social skills of a child, which are difficult to hone when they become adults. These small practices create a huge impact on the resilience of a child.

By the end of the workshop, the parents were eagerly sharing about how eye-opening the workshop was. They said they felt more equipped in approaching the changes in their child. As an action plan, the parents shared that they will echo the workshop to their spouse and neighbors.

We hope that by constantly holding workshops like this, we would be able guide the parents in planting  seeds of strengths and resiliency in our students, and give them the tools they need to thrive in life.