Resilience for Your 4-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play a vital role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship; growing resilience provides an excellent opportunity.

Resilience is the ability to overcome challenges and adversities. You can often see resilience when people can thrive despite many challenges. A loving and consistent relationship with a trusted adult builds resilience in children.¹ Other ways to build children’s strength to handle challenges is to help them identify their strengths and to form a strong sense of identity, including pride in their cultural or racial heritage.

No matter how many positive, supportive influences a child has in their life, too much adversity can have long-term negative effects on development. Reducing serious adversities in children’s lives is the best way to keep them healthy.²

Throughout the early years, children face developmentally appropriate challenges and learn whether or not an adult can be trusted to be there for them when needed. For example, when a three-to-four-year-old is thinking, “Is this okay to try? Are you still here with me?”  seeing that one of their important adults is there—paying attention and assuring them that everything is okay—gives the child a sense that it is okay to approach a challenge.

Three-to-four-year-olds can handle some challenges independently, such as another child taking their toy. Others will feel challenged and may look to a parent or another caregiver to help them speak up for themselves and say, “I was using that.” Although the circumstances change as the child grows up, the need to know that a trusted adult is there for them will promote resilience at all ages.

We all face challenges to being resilient. As your child is developing, it is essential that they can turn to you to figure out when a challenge is the right size for them and how to overcome feeling scared, hurt, or excluded. Resilience means being willing to face a right-sized challenge, even if a challenging experience in the past was difficult to overcome.

The steps below include specific, practical strategies to prepare you to build resilience and a relationship with your child that includes reliable, unconditional support and love.

Why Resilience?

Your child’s openness to engage in manageable challenges and recover from difficult experiences is essential to developing lifelong resilience. You can begin by exposing your child to challenges that are just the right size for them, offering just enough support for them to know they can trust you, and helping them recognize and feel a sense of success and empowerment when they master the experience.

Today, in the short term, resilience can create

• opportunities for your child to have new experiences
• a sense of confidence that your child can manage a certain level of difficulty
• a strong connection between you as you navigate these challenges together and triumph in success

Tomorrow, in the long term, helping your child develop resilience

• develops a sense of safety, security, and a belief in self
• provides a firm foundation for exploration, learning, and speaking up
• prepares your child for handling inevitable unexpected challenges in life
• builds skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making
• deepens family trust and intimacy

Five Steps for Growing Resilience

This five-step process helps you and your child grow resilience together. It also builds important critical life skills in your child. The same process can also be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).

Three-to-four-year-olds may use sentences limited to five to six words and will still cry as a central form of communicating with you. Paying close attention to your child’s facial expressions, body movements, and sounds helps you better understand what they are trying to communicate. Your efforts to learn from your child build trust and create empathetic interactions that let them know you are interested in their thoughts.

Understanding what your child thinks and feels will make a big difference in setting the stage for resilience. Your child will give you many cues about whether a challenge feels too big or too small for them. Every child is different, and your child may change from day to day in terms of how willing they are to take on challenges and to be resilient when those experiences become difficult.

You are the person who will know your child’s cues better than anyone else, and you will be able to anticipate if talking to someone new, trying a new food, having a new childcare provider, or another experience is right for today. Is your child feeling particularly tired? Did they just get hurt, or are they hungry? Knowing how they are doing and what their facial expressions and body language mean will help you decide if a challenge is the right size for your child right now.

In paying attention and noting minor differences in your child’s verbal and non-verbal language, you

• show them that they can trust you to notice how they feel
• let them know that you will help them to face challenges
• will help them advocate for themselves if something feels like too much for right now or if they need more support
• tell them that they can trust you to help them gain a sense of what experiences are right for risk-taking and which ones are not
• deepen your ability to communicate with one another

Actions

• Help your child notice and name their cues to develop self-awareness and learn to trust their feelings. This includes describing and naming the pride they may feel when they have gotten through a challenging situation. Pointing out their resilience will help them notice it and know it is there when the next challenge arises.
• Each time there is an opportunity, ask your child, “What do you notice? How do you feel? How do you think the other child feels? What are you wondering?” 
  • For example, if your child is with others who are all facing a challenging situation – such as the first day in a new childcare room – help your child notice their thoughts and reactions and those of the other children. You might even name what expressions and body language you notice: “That little girl just ran over to the block area with a big smile. Her running and smile make me think she is excited to check out the blocks in this new room. Do you think that she is excited?” 
  • You can also point out how your child seems to feel at the end of the day and how that seems different than what you noticed at the beginning. “It seems you are happy that you met new friends and had fun playing. This differs from how you looked this morning when you were pretty uncertain about entering the room. I think you were able to get over your uncertainty and have fun today. Is that true?” 
• When reading books, look at the images of people and ask your child what they notice about the people that show them being resilient. Ask, “How do you think that character is feeling? Did they get through that big challenge?”  If your child does not respond to your questions, shift to narrating your observations. For example, “I think the horse feels proud. His chest is puffed up, and he has just accomplished something challenging!”
• If your child is feeling unsure about how to describe all of the feelings that occur when trying to be resilient or how others are feeling, consider asking questions, naming what you notice, and leaving plenty of quiet space after your questions so they have an opportunity to share their ideas too.
• “How did you feel when you first saw the new classroom? I noticed some children were very excited about the toys.”
• “I noticed other children took more time to look around and get comfortable. Was there anything that made you feel nervous?”
• “I am feeling happy to see you. How do you feel right now?”
• “I wonder how you will feel when we come back tomorrow?”
• “Is there anything we can do to remember how resilient you were today?”

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, there is much to learn about understanding your child’s rhythms, temperaments, and needs. Because of all this learning, you will make mistakes and even poor choices. How you handle those moments can determine how you help build your child’s resilience. Offering yourself the grace and permission to not be perfect can ease your anxiety in responding to your child’s needs. Learning about developmental milestones can help you better understand what your child is going through.³

• Three-four-year-olds are copying or mimicking adult words and actions.
• Three-four-year-olds are growing in their sense of empathy for others. They will attempt to comfort another crying child and show affection for others without prompting.
• Three-four-year-olds can carry a conversation by offering two to three sentences but do not yet have a feelings vocabulary. They cannot describe their body sensations when they are upset or dealing with any big feelings. A feelings vocabulary takes longer to develop.
• Three-four-year-olds are eager to play pretend play independently and cooperatively with other children. Children gain vital practice with all of their developmental milestones through play.
• Three-four-year-olds can create exclusivity by focusing on one person and ignoring others. With the help of adults, they can learn to be more inclusive.
• Three-four-year-olds are beginning to notice differences, including culture and race, making it critical to discuss inclusion and the essential nature of different perspectives in order for them to learn.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.

Actions

• Use your tone of voice and facial expression to help your child celebrate when they have gotten through a change, such as a new childcare arrangement, sleeping in a new place, trying a new food, and so on.
• Read and “pretend play” together.
  • During reading time, select a book of faces to help your child learn to identify the different feelings of other children. Point out what you notice and how you can tell what each child is feeling. Do the children’s feelings change based on their experiences in the book? Be sure to point out moments when children successfully overcome difficulties.
  • After reading a story together, act out what feelings look like together. “First, she looked sad (make a sad face), and then she got help and looked happier (make a happy face).”
• Share your thoughts and feelings. Talk about what you notice, how you feel, why you feel it, and what signs you are giving even when it’s uncomfortable. “I did not expect we would get home so late. I don’t know how we can clean up before our friends arrive. This mess is making me feel very worried. Maybe I will feel better after we get the toys picked up. Can you help, too? I am sure we can handle this if we work together.”
• Talk aloud about how you respond to your big feelings: “It made me feel so much better to tell you how I was feeling and to ask for help.”
• Grow optimism. In addition to growing these essential skills that foster resilience, there are beliefs and attitudes that you can promote. For example, when your child uses definitive language like, “I will never be able to do this,” you can respond,
  • “Some things can feel tough, but then it is possible to get through them after all.”
  • “Do you remember last time when this seemed hard? You took a deep breath and were able to do it.”
  • “I wonder if we can do something to help us overcome this challenge.”

Your daily routines allow you and your child to practice new vital skills if you seize those chances. With practice, your child will improve over time as you give them the opportunity with support. Practice grows vital new brain connections that strengthen (and eventually form habits) each time your child works hard toward a goal or demonstrates belief in themselves.

The practice also provides essential opportunities to grow self-efficacy – a child’s sense that they can do a task successfully. This leads to confidence. It helps them understand that mistakes and failures are part of learning.

To build resilience, it is essential to practice noticing feelings, engaging in just-right-sized challenges, noticing the trusted adults who are always there to help, and remembering the child’s strengths and pride in their own culture that can help them get through challenging situations.

Actions

• Learn about your child’s development. Each new age presents different challenges, and being informed about your child’s developmental milestones can offer guidance on appropriate challenges.
• Provide opportunities for your child to do more challenging things than they have done before. The goal is to create experiences that are just beyond what they are comfortable with. If they have already mastered a game, is there another slightly more challenging game you can play?
• Provide books, dolls, and other materials at home that allow children to see people who face challenges and do not necessarily get through them the first time around. Do you tell stories of someone who could not succeed initially but kept trying? Describe how that person is building resilience to get through hard times.
• Use your child’s dolls or stuffed animals to act out moments of resilience-building. This is an excellent way to practice facing really big challenges that the child might be experiencing or about to experience, such as a move, a new baby in the family, or a significant medical situation. You can name the feelings the doll might feel and develop strategies to help the doll feel stronger to face the challenge. Should the doll take a breath and ask for help? Should the doll bring something that will make them feel better? Does the doll have special skills that can help them in this moment?

At this point, you’ve shown your child that you can be trusted to be there when they need you. Your child is learning to notice when they feel worried, fearful, or stressed when encountering new situations. Together, you brainstorm ways to overcome a challenge and recognize the pride and success of feeling resilient.

You can offer support when needed by reteaching, monitoring, and coaching. This support tells the child that you see the challenge they are facing and are here to talk about it and support them. Even if it is tough to talk about, such as the death of a family member, a friend moving away, or a loved one who is sick, children need to know that their trusted adult is there to talk to them and help them figure out how to handle it. Parents and those in a parenting role naturally offer support as they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different.

Actions

• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements like: “I noticed that you were nervous about going to the new center, but you got through it and had a good time. I love seeing that.”
• On days with extra challenges, when you can see your child is scared of new people or situations, offer confidence in your child’s ability to face the new. In a gentle, non-public way, you can say, “Remember how last time it seemed like it would be hard, but you tried it, and it turned out to be fun? I thought you might like this challenge, too.”
• Actively reflect on how your child is feeling when approaching challenges. You can offer reflections like:
  • “You seem worried about playing with the new kids in your class.” Offering comfort when facing new situations can help your child gain a sense of security and face them rather than backing away.
  • You can also offer comfort items to help your child face new challenges. “Would your bear help you feel better?” Bring a comfort item with you as you face new challenges.

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also promotes safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.

There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “You tried that new vegetable—I love seeing that!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment such as a smile or hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you behave in the store, you will get a treat on the drive home.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after getting through your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed. Or, in the morning, once ready for school, take a few minutes to listen to music together.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.