Bouncing Back

Children are resilient and can adapt to many new situations. The key is to ensure children have basic necessities, adults have their own mental health in check as much as possible, and that families focus on connection. Here are some tips and reminders for families.

• Mental health toolkit for kids:
  • Strong relationships
  • A healthy mind-body connection
  • A positive sense of identity, and 
  • Effective strategies for emotion regulation 
• Strategies for weighing risk versus resilience
  • Some kinds of stress are persistent and difficult to change. When stress reduction only takes you so far, focus on building resilience, including strong family relationships with lots of room for joy and connection.
• Joy ≠ happiness: Joy can support all of these tools. Joy connects people and buffers the impact of stress on mental health. Joy is sticky and stays with you, even in moments of stress. 
• Joy can co-exist with other feelings like sadness, frustration, and disappointment. Techniques for inspiring joy:
  • Find brief, but meaningful experiences, with loved ones. 
  • Make joy an intentional part of each day with 20 minutes of joyful interactions. 
    • Take a walk together and notice the sound of birds and the shape of the clouds. Listen to favorite songs and have a dance party. 
    • Draw pictures of your favorite moments spent together over the course of a week.
    • Make family dinner and give each person in the family a special job.
• For further information, visit www.familyresiliencelab.org