WILD CHILD: Building resilience by being outside

What do we mean when we say resilience? As a parent I want my child to have resilience or what some people refer to as ‘bounce-back-ability’. I hear experts talk about the importance of resilience, so my child can come out of life's challenges successful and stronger. But what does that look like?

One key part of resilience is the ability to bring to mind times when you faced similar challenges to the situation you are in and then use that experience to give you the strength to do something hard again.

For example. If you are about to walk into an important meeting and accidentally spill something on your shirt. You might remember a similar time and how you were able to mostly clean your shirt, or how you made a joke about the problem and everyone understood, or something similar. That memory might give you ideas for strategies to try or the confidence in your ability to manage the difficult feelings. As a result you feel a little bit calmer and feel more confident in your ability to cope with this unexpected difficult problem.

You can think of this part of resilience as a bank of stored memories and experiences. You draw from that bank each time you face a difficult situation. The experiences that really help are the ones where you faced a very real potential of failing.

In our previous example, you pulled from that bank of memories and experiences to help you remember strategies that worked in the past. Those experiences helped you know that you have the ability to handle the current situation. In the future, the memory of this new experience will help you again. In this way each difficult experience helps give you a clearer understand of what you are capable of doing.

Your child needs those opportunities. Chances to do something that they really want to do but aren't sure they can. Opportunities where failure is a very real option, so that they can build memories of times where they succeeded; times where they failed but tried again and ultimately succeeded; times where they failed and dealt with that failure and came out of the other side of that failure.

Outdoor and risky play gives a child those chances. When they balance on a log there is a very real possibility of falling. If they fall they get up and try again. If they succeed they have conquered the scary uncertain feeling in their stomach and built a memory to inform the next time they feel that feeling. If they keep falling they learn that they can keep trying even when they bump their knees, that they make progress even when they don’t manage to cross the log the whole way, etc.

Making a regular commitment to head outside, whether that is a place near to your home or by joining our playgroup regularly will give you many chances to deposit experiences into both your child’s and your own banks. When you play in every kind of weather, you will have times where unexpected things happen: a wet boot, cold hands, forgotten snacks. Those experiences will become memories that give you courage and strength and knowledge about just what you can handle the next time you face something hard. Best of all you don't have to work hard to build those experiences. Just be willing to play alongside your child, even when you can't control the experience. 

Next time it’s rainy or hot or the weather seems tricky head outside anyway. You will have fun while building up your own and your child’s bank of experiences.

Written by Tandy Morton, Wild Child Outdoor Playgroup Facilitator