Resilience in young people: what it is, what it isn't, and how families can help

Resilience in young people: what it is, what it isn't, and how families can help

Written by Jay Bakrania, Clinical Psychology Registrar at Therapywell Allied Health and Wellbeing.

Resilience is one of the most important life skills we can nurture in our children and the young people we care for. It is the ability to bounce back from challenges, adapt to change, manage disappointment, and keep taking steps forward, even tiny ones, when things feel hard. Resilience gives young people the confidence to take healthy risks and try new things, so they can continue to learn, grow and engage with new and valuable opportunities at every stage of life.

What resilience isn't

Resilience is often confused with simply "getting over it", forgetting what has happened, or dismissing an experience because "things could be worse". While this can seem easier and less chaotic in the short term, it tends to build ineffective coping strategies and can quietly feed feelings of incapability, anxiety and social withdrawal.

Young people today navigate academic pressure, complex social dynamics, extracurricular demands and personal challenges. Resilience doesn't mean avoiding stress or never feeling upset. It means developing healthy ways to cope, problem-solve and grow through experience.

It also means understanding that we don't have to be good at everything, or okay all the time. We can be strong, resilient people and still ask for support, belonging and help when experiences feel overwhelming. In fact, knowing when and how to ask is part of resilience itself.

What the research tells us

One of the most reassuring findings in the resilience literature is that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary. Developmental psychologist Ann Masten famously described it as "ordinary magic": resilience doesn't come from rare inner toughness, but from everyday adaptive systems that most children already have access to, including caring relationships, problem-solving skills, self-regulation and a sense of belonging. When those systems are supported, resilience tends to follow. This is why resilience is best understood as a set of skills and conditions that can be built, rather than a personality trait some children have and others lack.

Decades of longitudinal research point to one protective factor above all others: the presence of at least one stable, caring relationship with a committed adult. Emmy Werner's landmark study following children on the Hawaiian island of Kauai over more than three decades found that children who did well despite significant early adversity almost always had at least one adult who believed in them and stayed connected to them. Later research, including work summarised by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, has consistently reached the same conclusion. That adult is often a parent, but it doesn't have to be. Grandparents, aunties and uncles, coaches, teachers and family friends all count.

For families, this is genuinely good news. The single most powerful thing you can offer a young person isn't a program, a technique or a perfectly managed childhood. It's a steady, warm relationship that holds through the hard patches. Resilience is not built in isolation. It is built in relationship.

Grit and resilience: what's the difference?

Many parents come across the idea of "grit", popularised by psychologist Angela Duckworth, and wonder how it relates to resilience. Grit describes passion and perseverance towards long-term goals: the capacity to keep working at something that matters over months and years. Resilience is broader. It's about how we respond to setbacks, stress and adversity across all areas of life, and it includes knowing when to persist, when to rest, and when to ask for help.

The two overlap, but they aren't interchangeable, and it's worth being a little careful with grit as a parenting goal. The research on grit is more contested than the popular books suggest, and "gritty" messaging can tip into an unhelpful place: push through at all costs, don't complain, toughen up. That framing works against what we know about how children actually learn and grow. Sustainable perseverance comes from a regulated nervous system, a sense of purpose, and supportive relationships, not from white-knuckling through distress. If we want persistent kids, we get there through safety and connection, not pressure.

Why it matters

Research and clinical experience suggest that young people with well-developed resilience skills tend to manage the demands of school more effectively, regulate their emotions with greater ease, and build more positive peer relationships. They are often more willing to take healthy risks, like trying a new activity, and to develop confidence and independence over time. Perhaps most importantly, they are more likely to view mishaps as learning opportunities rather than personal failures, to share their concerns with the people around them, and to celebrate what makes them different.

How the nervous system is involved

We often hear that growth happens outside our comfort zone. A more accurate way to think about it is that growth happens at the edge of our capacity. If we're too comfortable, we're probably not learning anything new. But if we're pushed too far beyond what our nervous system can manage, we move into survival mode, where the brain is focused on protection rather than learning.

Real growth comes from moving into manageable challenge and then returning to regulation, where the brain and body can consolidate what has been learned. This is why supporting a young person's nervous system matters just as much as encouraging them to push through.

Children don't develop the ability to regulate on their own. They learn it through co-regulation: borrowing the calm of a trusted adult, over and over, until it gradually becomes their own. When a parent stays steady alongside a distressed child, they are not "giving in" to big feelings. They are literally teaching the child's nervous system what recovery feels like.

Building resilience at home

Families play a powerful role in shaping resilient children. Here are some practical ways to help.

Encourage problem-solving. Instead of immediately stepping in to fix a problem, guide your young person with questions like "What do you think you could try?" or "What has worked for you before?"

Normalise struggle. Remind your children that everyone faces challenges. Share stories of your own setbacks and what you learned from them.

Praise effort and process, not just results. Focus on persistence, preparation and improvement rather than only grades or other achievements. Mindset research suggests that children who believe abilities can grow with effort tend to respond more constructively to setbacks. The effect isn't magic, and mindset messages work best when they're backed up by real support, but the underlying principle is sound: help your child see struggle as part of learning, not evidence they can't.

Teach healthy coping skills. These include problem-solving skills relevant to the situation, but also skills that regulate the nervous system and allow the brain and body to process and learn from the experience. This might look like breathing exercises, physical activity, journaling, talking through feelings, alternate thinking, or connecting with others.

Develop emotional regulation. Help your child name their feelings, like anger or frustration, and find helpful ways to respond, such as deep breathing or taking a break. Normalise these feelings. It isn't feeling angry or anxious that causes trouble; it's how we behave when we feel those things. Emotions are not weaknesses. They are important pieces of information.

Teach self-compassion. Encourage your children to be kind to themselves when things go wrong, and remind them of past challenges they successfully worked through, or the unexpected good that came out of a difficult experience or perceived failure.

Maintain routines. Consistent sleep, meals and homework routines provide stability and reduce stress, especially during difficult periods.

Assign responsibilities. Give your young person age-appropriate responsibilities to build confidence and competence, particularly around their own wellbeing.

Most importantly, model resilience. Show your children how you handle your own emotions and stress in safe and healthy ways. Talk with them about challenges you are facing that are appropriate to share, what you do when things feel hard, and how you get through those times. Let them see who you turn to for support, and make sure they see this in action, not just hear about it.

Building resilience through friendships

Belonging is protective. Young people who feel accepted by their peers tend to cope better with stress and recover more quickly from setbacks, and friendship is where many resilience skills are actually practised: negotiating differences, managing disappointment, repairing after conflict, and asking for and offering support.

Parents can help by treating friendship troubles as opportunities rather than emergencies. When a young person is left out, has a falling-out, or feels betrayed, the instinct is often to fix it or minimise it. Instead, listen first, validate the hurt, and then coach gently: "What do you think happened from her side?", "What would you want to say to him?", "Is this a friendship worth repairing, or one to let drift?" Learning that relationships can rupture and repair, and that not every friendship has to last forever, is one of the most valuable resilience lessons of childhood and adolescence.

It also helps for young people to have trusted adults beyond their immediate family: an auntie, a family friend, a coach, a youth leader. Ask your child who they would go to if something was worrying them and they didn't want to talk to you. If they can name someone, that's a strength worth nurturing. If they can't, it's worth gently building those connections, because a wider web of support means no single relationship has to carry everything.

One important caveat: ordinary friendship conflict builds skills, but ongoing bullying does not. Repeated, targeted mistreatment is not a resilience opportunity, and expecting a child to simply cope with it is harmful. Bullying calls for adult intervention, at home and with the school.

Building resilience at school

School is where young people spend a large portion of their waking lives, and school connectedness, the sense of being known, valued and safe at school, is consistently associated with better mental health and wellbeing in Australian and international research.

One of the most practical things a parent can do is make sure their child can name an adult at school they would go to if they needed help: a classroom teacher, a year coordinator, a chaplain or wellbeing officer, a coach. Ask the question directly: "If something went wrong at school, who would you talk to?" If your child can answer confidently, that connection is a genuine protective factor. If they can't, it's worth raising with the school, because helping a young person build even one warm relationship with a staff member can change how safe school feels.

Beyond relationships, school offers mastery experiences: chances to work at something hard and improve, whether that's a subject, a sport, an instrument or a creative pursuit. Mastery builds the deep, earned kind of confidence that praise alone can't, so it's worth supporting your child to stick with at least one thing long enough to feel themselves getting better at it.

Finally, aim to partner with the school rather than only advocate against it. When parents and schools communicate early, share what they're each seeing, and problem-solve together, young people experience the adults around them as a coordinated, steady team, which is itself regulating and reassuring.

A note for families of neurodivergent young people

For autistic children, ADHDers and other neurodivergent young people, resilience framing needs particular care. Sometimes "building resilience" quietly becomes an expectation that a child should tolerate environments that actually need adjusting: sensory overwhelm, unclear expectations, social demands that cost far more than they appear to. And sometimes what looks like coping is masking, which carries a real cost over time.

The key message for families is this: we can accommodate and encourage growth and challenge at the same time. These things are not mutually exclusive. Adjusting the environment isn't lowering the bar; it's making sure the challenge lands at the edge of your child's capacity rather than far beyond it, which is exactly where genuine growth happens. A young person who is supported and understood has far more resources available for stretching themselves than one who is spending everything they have just getting through the day.

When to seek support

It's worth being thoughtful about how we talk about resilience. Sometimes it's interpreted as tolerating more stress or needing less support. But resilience isn't about enduring endless adversity. It's about having access to the internal and external resources that help us recover, adapt and keep moving forward. If we overstate resilience, we can accidentally overlook opportunities to reduce unnecessary stress, strengthen support systems, or respond with compassion when someone is struggling.

As a general guide, consider reaching out for professional support if you notice changes that are persistent rather than passing, that show up across more than one setting, or that are getting in the way of everyday life. This might look like withdrawal from friends or activities your child used to enjoy, ongoing school refusal or avoidance, changes in sleep or appetite that don't settle, frequent physical complaints like stomach aches with no clear cause, big emotional reactions that seem out of proportion and hard to recover from, or your child talking about themselves in persistently negative or hopeless ways. You know your child best. If your gut says something has shifted, that instinct is worth listening to, and early support makes a meaningful difference.

Helpful resources for families

If you'd like to keep learning, Brisbane-based parenting educator Michelle Mitchell writes warmly and practically about resilience in children and teens; her book Everyday Resilience is a great starting point for parents. Michelle also founded the Resilient Kids Conference, a one-day event held around Australia that brings together leading parenting educators for parents and professionals who live and work with kids and teens.

Final thoughts

Resilience is not about avoiding difficulty or preventing every challenge. It's not about handling everything without emotion, or never experiencing hardship after challenging times.

Allowing children and young people to experience manageable stress helps them learn that they can cope with discomfort. Resilience is not "just moving on" or "not crying". It's about equipping our children with the tools to face difficulty with confidence, and surrounding them with relationships that hold steady when things get hard, so that every challenge becomes an opportunity to build strength, character and self-belief.

Frequently asked questions

Can resilience be taught?

Yes. Resilience is best understood as a set of skills and supports rather than a fixed trait. Emotional regulation, problem-solving, self-compassion and help-seeking can all be learned and strengthened over time, and the relationships around a child play a central role in that learning.

Is my child just too sensitive?

Sensitivity is a temperament, not a flaw. Sensitive children often feel things deeply and notice more, which can be a real strength. What matters is not making a child less sensitive, but helping them build the regulation skills and supportive relationships that let them manage big feelings without being overwhelmed by them.

Does struggling build character?

Manageable struggle, with support nearby, does help children grow. Overwhelming or chronic stress without support does the opposite. The goal isn't to remove all difficulty or to let children sink or swim; it's to keep challenges at the edge of their capacity and stay connected while they work through them.

Should I step in when my child has friendship problems?

Usually, coach before you rescue. Listen, validate the hurt, and help your child think through their options. Ordinary conflict is where relationship skills are built. The exception is ongoing bullying, which is repeated and targeted; that calls for adult intervention with the school rather than expecting your child to handle it alone.

When should I be worried rather than just watchful?

Look for the combination of persistence, spread and impact: changes that last for weeks rather than days, show up at home and at school, and interfere with friendships, learning or daily routines. If that pattern is present, or your instincts are telling you something has shifted, it's reasonable to seek professional advice.