Psychology Application Essay: Resilience in Middle Childhood

            Resilience in middle childhood refers to the ability of a child experiencing development to appropriately cope with adversity and stress. Middle childhood is a stage where a child’s role in the environment expands. At this stage, a child is capable of spending more time away from the parents for example in school and other activities. Children at this age start experiencing high environmental risks that may threaten their lives. Therefore resilience in middle childhood refers to the capability of such children to cope with the challenging environment. To build resilience among these children efforts are needed from both parental side and at school. This is because children meet challenges at home and at school. There are children who are resilient just by nature; their personality helps them to be psychologically strong. Such children do not find any difficulty in case of any kind of disappointment, rejection. These children have common features for example independent, good in solving a problem, optimistic and have a social connection.      However, this character is limited to a few children. That is why resilience in most of the children is nurtured, developed either y their parents especially those who are resilient or at school. These are some of the ways parents may build resilience in their children.  One of the ways is having a positive attitude; your positivity about any challenge will make a child to have the same positive mind in case of any challenge she or he may meet. It is also good to have time of teaching the children of any challenges they are most likely to meet in their daily life and by doing so, a child will always be ready to encounter such challenges since they are already informed of them. Another way parents can build resilience in their children is by making their children active participants in the family to make them get exposed to some of the challenges and observing their reactions for example involving them in home problem solving. Parents can also build coping skills for their children through various strategies and these skills can help them when life does not go well for them.

            My parents tried the best they could to build resilience in me though I could not realize it then. Being the first born at home my parents could assign me some duties to do alone and they could observe how I do them. Sometimes, they used to go away for a while and I would be left in the house alone. By doing this, little did I know that they were trying to weigh my capability to stay in a lonely environment. Secondly, I have never got a negative reaction from my parents plus my teachers whenever I did not perform well in class. I think this is what has always made me always positive in whatever I do. The negative reaction about something discourages someone most especially if a young child is being discouraged about something; she or he will grow up knowing that she or he will grow up knowing that she or she cannot do that particular but being positive in all ways build confidence in that child. Also, if a child at one moment was silenced down say in class, that child can never have confidence to speak again. Therefore, resilience is built on the way we handle these children both at home and at school.