A Provider's Guide to Building Resilience in Children

As a childcare provider, you see children face challenges every day—from the frustration of a block tower tumbling down to the anxiety of a parent leaving at drop-off. While you can't shield them from every difficulty, you can equip them with the skills to navigate these moments. This is where building resilience in children becomes one of the most important parts of your work.

What is resilience?

Resilience is simply the ability to bounce back from challenges. For a child, this could mean trying again after a puzzle proves difficult or learning how to make new friends in a new classroom.

Resilience isn't just one skill; it has four interconnected parts:

• Emotional resilience: The ability to manage feelings during stress.
• Mental resilience: The capacity to stay focused and solve problems.
• Physical resilience: The body's ability to recover from physical challenges.
• Social resilience: The skill of connecting with others for support.

Why building resilience in children matters

Realizing that we can’t control everything in life and processing that idea should begin during early childhood. Children face different challenges every day. They might have experiences that range from moving to new locations to dealing with family death or experiencing an adverse childhood experience (ACE) such as abuse or witnessing violence. Resilience is important because it’s what children need to process and overcome hardship. Resilient children are able to recover from setbacks, build their confidence, and strengthen their ability to cope when things are outside of their control. A lack of resilience can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as isolation or avoidance that can last into adulthood.

When children develop resilience, they are less likely to have anxiety or suffer with depression, and they tend to have increased social involvement. Building resilience in children equips them with the emotional and social tools needed to keep functioning positively.

10 ways to build resilience in children

Challenges and adversity aren’t specific to age. Young children can experience stress, anxiety, grief, and more. That’s why it’s necessary to begin building resilience as early as possible.

According to Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, fostering resilience involves focusing on seven key areas: Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, Contribution, Coping, and Control. The following strategies will help you develop these 'Seven Cs' in your daily practice.

1. Build strong connections

Social support is an important aspect of building resilience in young children. Teach your children the importance of connecting with their classmates and friends. This is better taught through demonstration. Guide them through lessons on empathy. Demonstrate the importance of listening to others. When young children have a strong sense of support from their community, this helps strengthen resilience.

2. Encourage helping others

Brave is an important word to young children. They often associate the word with doing things by themselves. To help build resilience, lead your children to the understanding that being brave also means knowing when to ask for help. Empower them in the classroom. Ask them for help with age-appropriate tasks they can master. Feelings of helplessness can often be overpowered by feelings of competency, so have your preschoolers help you make a list of ways they can help their classmates.

3. Maintain daily routines

Establishing structure and a daily routine can be beneficial for young children. In building a schedule, set aside times for work, play, and snacks. In times of stress or transition, a routine can be comforting. Alternatively, you can consider creating moments or situations that occasionally deviate from the routine. Flexibility is a big component of resilience. Using moments of change to help your children develop flexibility will strengthen their resilience.

4. Take a break

When children are faced with stress or adversity that is too intense or long-lasting, they can become overwhelmed. This feeling can affect their ability to cope. Encourage your children to take breaks and focus on what they can control. These are excellent opportunities for creative play, exercise, or games.

5. Teach self-care basics

A healthy body is a great foundation for a healthy mind. Teaching your preschoolers the importance of getting enough sleep during nap time and bedtime, staying active, and eating nutritious foods will help them stay in a healthy mindset.

6. Move toward your goals

Creating goals helps young children focus on specific tasks. Instead of setting one large goal, break it into smaller ones. Learning numbers 1 to 10 becomes learning a new number each week. When children have a goal they’re working on, it can help them build resilience as they move toward the goal.

7. Nurture a positive self-view

When children have a positive view of themselves, it carries them through future challenges. Remind your preschoolers that the struggles they’ve had in the past have made them stronger for the future. Help them realize that they can trust themselves.

8. Foster a hopeful outlook

When children experience painful events, it can be difficult to talk them past the current situation and help them look toward the future. Nurture positivity and hope. Optimism can help children remove their focus from their challenges and redirect their energy toward something good. However, this does not mean invalidating their feelings. Acknowledge their feelings and teach them how to reframe them. Teach them how to focus on what they have instead of what they’ve lost.

9. Look for opportunities for self-discovery

A strong sense of self can help young children build resilience. Every situation they experience can teach them about themselves. Did they get back on their bike after they fell? Did they keep trying to build a block tower after it fell over? Children likely don’t realize how important these actions are. In your classroom, call attention to behaviors and moments like these to help reinforce the idea of resilience.

10. Accept change

Change can often have a negative connotation. However, it is neither good nor bad. Help your preschoolers see that change is a necessary part of life. While they can’t always control what changes, they can control how they react to it. Give them examples of common changes in their lives. Their favorite color could change from red to blue. From last year to this year, they’ve changed by getting taller. Point out that things change, but they can handle it.

Play and resilience 

Adults tend to look at learning and playing as being mutually exclusive. We take breaks from learning or working to play. However, with young children, play is learning and working.

Through play-based learning, young children can discover themselves and their world. They can take concepts they’ve internalized and act them out during imaginative play. They use play to explore ways to interact with their friends and peers. Play also allows them to process and work through their emotions.

Play is essential for developing physical, cognitive, language, and social-emotional skills. It gives children the ability to use their imagination and creativity. Play also creates opportunities for children to display and strengthen skills, such as attention, self-control, and critical thinking, that are central to resilience.

8 simple activities for building resilience in children

Help children develop resilience with these fun, easy-to-set-up activities. Each one includes a short description, what you’ll need, and how it supports emotional growth.

1. Mindfulness breathing

Teach children how to calm their minds and bodies through simple breathing exercises.

What you need: A quiet space.

How it builds resilience: Helps children manage stress, stay present, and develop a powerful coping tool for challenging moments.

2. Feelings charades

A fun, interactive game where children act out emotions and others guess what they’re feeling.

What you need: Emotion cards or slips of paper with feelings written on them.

How it builds resilience: Encourages children to recognize, express, and talk about emotions in a safe, supportive way.

3. Compliment circle

A group activity where children take turns giving and receiving positive compliments.

What you need: No materials required, just a group seated in a circle.

How it builds resilience: Builds self-esteem, reinforces positive interactions, and strengthens the sense of community.

4. Growth mindset statements

Introduce the concept of a growth mindset by sharing positive phrases about learning and effort.

What you need: Sticky notes or a poster board.

How it builds resilience: Encourages children to embrace mistakes as learning opportunities and fosters a flexible, optimistic outlook.

Examples of statements include:

• I can’t do it YET.

• I can do hard things.

• Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.

• I will try again.

• I will do my best.

5. Musical chairs

A kinder version of the classic game where the focus is on fun and encouragement, not competition.

What you need: Chairs and music.

How it builds resilience: Teaches children to handle small disappointments, practice sportsmanship, and focus on supporting each other.

6. Problem-solving puzzles

Work on age-appropriate puzzles that challenge problem-solving skills.

What you need: Puzzles suited for the child’s age group.

How it builds resilience: Shows children how to face and overcome challenges, encouraging perseverance and creative thinking.

7. Kindness jar

Create a jar where children can write or draw acts of kindness they’ve done or noticed.

What you need: A jar and slips of paper.

How it builds resilience: Reinforces positive social behavior, builds empathy, and fosters a sense of belonging and connection.

8. Resilience storytime

Share stories and films that highlight characters overcoming challenges and demonstrating resilience.

What you need: Books like After the Fall by Dan Santat or The Magical Yet by Angela DiTerlizzi, and films like Inside Out.

How it builds resilience: Helps children see resilience in action, understand emotions, and learn from relatable characters and stories.

Resilience is a skill for life

Building resilience in children is a powerful way to support their long-term emotional health and well-being. While challenges and struggles are inevitable, teaching young ones how to face them head-on equips them with essential skills for life.

Resilience isn’t built overnight—it requires consistent practice and reinforcement through thoughtful activities and interactions. By incorporating the tools and strategies shared here, you can support your preschoolers to better understand their emotions, adapt to challenges, and thrive.