Can children’s books help to build resilience among the young?

A plethora of articles has recently suggested that children and young adults in the 21^st Century are not as independent as those in earlier generations. We hear of adults in their late twenties who simply won’t leave home and regularly turn to their parents to get them out of trouble. Parents joke about the fact they are going to have to run away from home to persuade their adult children to ‘move out’. It seems that our children are simply not as resilient as they once were.

Some are able to persist, adapt and bounce back when they face obstacles but it seems, more and more are feeling like ‘victims’. These children withdraw, seem unable to cope with life and are often fearful and unhappy. There are many books of non-fiction to help these children.

My argument is that fiction can be just as powerful. This is why children love stories about superheroes, great friendships, children who outsmart adults, or the wonderful Disney characters like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Pooh, and Elsa in Frozen; and why one of my aims in my children’s adventure books is to always show the resilience of my characters. Even in the most difficult of circumstances I try to show them overcoming difficulties, bouncing back from bullying, for example, and facing danger with humour and courage. I don’t want to hide children from the tragedies of the world, but I want them to be able to go to a place where they can be the ‘heroes’ and imagine themselves slaying the dragon, beating the bad guys, and using their intelligence to get out of trouble. For example in The Entwhistle Experiment: Glued, the hero Horatio, with the help of his best friends, uses his latest invention, Stupendous Glue, to foil the bad guys (and girls) and save his parents.

Here are some reasons why good stories can help to build resilience:

1. The development of resilience occurs over a long period. Like any other skill, it needs to be taught explicitly and it needs to be practiced. It needs also to be reinforced at critical times, such as when children start school or when they begin secondary school. Books can be powerful backup at these times. There are many lists of children’s books on the internet that parents can read to their children, or suggest their children read, that teach lessons about resilience. Some of these show characters coping with problems, persisting when others have given up, showing bravery when a friend is in danger, overcoming fear, overcoming prejudices to find a friend, dealing with disappointment, working together, accepting others and solving problems. They illustrate important things children need to learn: kindness, honesty, generosity, thoughtfulness, knowing how to make sacrifices, a sense of belonging…all things that help to build resilience.

2. Young children who are verbally and socially adept when they start school, more easily develop relationships with other children and with adults. If they arrive at school with some skills that increase their chances of exhibiting resilience, they begin with an advantage over other less resilient children. Generally children who do well when they start school are those who:
   • have been taught to share;
   • can respond appropriately to social situations; that is, they are able to answer simple questions, they are polite, they understand that you should not interrupt when someone is speaking, and so on; and
   • can maintain control over emotions; that is, they do not have tantrums when they do not get their own way, they understand it is not right to hit or hurt someone else and so on.

Parents can develop all of these skills by direct teaching; they can reinforce them, over and over again with good books that illustrate these characteristics through plot and the behaviour of characters.

3. When children are about to start school a positive attitude can help them build resilience. Parents should tell stories about the fun they had at school and read books that help them to feel prepared and independent. For young children, books about visiting school before the first day, packing lunch boxes, trying on school uniform and so on teach about being prepared, a strong part of feeling more able to cope and, thus, more resilient. Again, a quick search of the internet, or even better, a visit to the local bookstore or advice from your child’s new teacher, will help you uncover a long list of books that will prepare your child for school in a fun way.

4. Basic literacy skills are also important for children about to begin school and few things will teach children these skills better than books. It is important for parents to set the example by making sure there are books in the home and by modelling their own pleasure in reading. Reading to children from an early age does not teach them to read but it does instil a love of books and it gives parents the opportunity to teach pre-reading skills. Studies confirm that children who come from homes where storybooks are read to them have a resilience advantage over children who are not read to at home. The research is very powerful about the influence parents have on their child’s literacy long before they reach school. By indirectly and in a playful way making your child aware of the pleasure in words and reading he or she enters school ready for the formal reading instruction supplied by the teacher. And is more resilient as a result of feeling confident in the classroom. In a later blog post I will talk about how to prepare children to read.

5. The over-riding necessity for children to develop resilience, and to remain resilient through adolescence, is the presence of at least one important person in their life – a parent, teacher, mentor, or family friend – who is:
   • Persistent – this person is not going to give up on the child no matter what;
   • Continuous – this person knows the child and the child’s background and is available to all them all year round and into the next year, and so on;
   • Consistent – the one person reinforces the same message – that is, there is a caring adult who believes, for example, that school is important, you can succeed, you can do the work, you can attend class, you can overcome bullying.

When parents read to their children, and with their children, and share and discuss books the opportunity arises to show them you will persist no matter what they do; you will be there always; and that you will reinforce the same messages. A friend of mine spoke to me recently about reading to his young son at bedtime and finding his mind drifting away to his work, his emails, and a long list of responsibilities. He said that later he thought about what was truly important to him and resolved that from now on his son would receive his full attention when he was reading to him. When his son grows into a secure, resilient, independent preschooler and later a resilient, mature, thoughtful and literate adolescent, I have no doubt, that reading great books with his father, and later independently, will be part of the reason.

If you are interested in getting some great books that will teach lessons about resilience for your children, family or friends I suggest you check out my brand new series The Entwhistle Experiment: Glued.