Resiliency: The Ability to Quickly Recover From Life’s Ups and Downs.

Do you have a kid who needs to build their resiliency? One who worries, stresses or is anxious? Is it hard to get them to slow the spin of the stress or worry once they start? Does it feel like no matter how much you comfort them or tell them it’s OK, it doesn’t seem to make a big difference? The good news is that resiliency is a skill that can be built. As a parent, it can be heartbreaking to watch a child that is unable to stop the spin.  How do I know? I’ve lived it. 

My Youngest Kiddo has a Severe Food Allergy

At times, we’ve seen her slip into large spin outs of stress and worry regarding all the ins and outs of her allergy. It pains me that she has to live with a level of fear regarding food. I don’t want any of my kids to live in fear and I feel for her in that what keeps her alive could also potentially kill her. 

But obviously food allergies are not the only thing that stresses out anxious kids today. According to the data, kids today are stressed to the max. They are stressed over grades, friend groups, social media, family dynamics… If you can name it, they are having a hard time coping with it. 

I Needed a Tool For Building Resiliency

I wanted to help the kids, families and teachers I work with acknowledge their feelings while going through the steps to retrain brains to look for positive. Side note: I also wanted to help my daughter. So I created a tool that I call, “Acknowledging Dark Clouds: Remembering Rainbows”.

This resiliency-building printable worksheet allows kids to acknowledge and write down their dark cloud feelings to release them. But then we remind kids that after the rain, you may see a rainbow, but you have to look up. Looking up and remembering the positives and gratitude we have in our lives helps to retrain our brain when we have dark clouds, or negative thoughts. 

The Key is Gratitude

Gratitude is a stress-blocker. When we think grateful, thankful thoughts, we release neurotransmitters that boost moods and decrease stress. Thinking of gratitudes helps wire the brain to move through those storms knowing that it will pass. It helps us build empathy and develop resiliency skills. 

This printable is great to do anytime with your kiddos. Hang it up where your child can use it as a tool when stress and worry kick in. Have your child practice reading the rainbows at the first sign of clouds rolling in. 

Guess what? It really helps. 

It helps my daughter by reminding her that she doesn’t have to sit with a dark cloud over her head. She can move through the dark cloud, look up and find her rainbows. It also helps kids I work with interrupt the stress spin cycle with positive, thankful thoughts to reflect on when they notice those stress thoughts starting. 

Telling someone to just “get over” their stress response isn’t helpful. Acknowledging the feeling while creating actionable steps to interrupt and change the pattern of repetitive thoughts is what’s going to empower kids to move through the storms in their lives and onto sunny days. What a gift to learn at a young age.

This is not just for kids. This is an incredible tool for anyone who needs a little bit of help moving out of the negative.

More from The Rooted Family

• Be Grateful: 21 Gratitude-Boosting Activities for Families Every day, for 21 days, you'll find new, fun, family-centered activity that will help you and your family learn to seek out gratitude. We're talking small tweaks that leave a HUGE impact on how you see life. And when you invest in the 21 days, you're investing in your family level of connection and your child's entire future.