Description
The purpose of this manual is to provide service providers with what they need to lead a workshop for parents about how to build resilience from infancy to age 6. The content of this parent workshop is taken from the Best Start by Health Nexus resource: Building Resilience in Young Children, a booklet for parents of children from birth to six year, available in English and French.
This Building Resilience in Young Children ready-to-use workshop is also available in English.
The manual guides you through:
- Introduction of presenter and topic. (5 minutes)
- Introduction of participants. See suggested ice-breakers, page 4. (10 minutes)
- Definition of resilience. See page 6. (5 minutes)
- Activities. See pages 7-18. (30-45 minutes). For the first session, Activities #1 and #2 are strongly suggested. For subsequent sessions, you can choose from activities # 3 to #7.
- Conclusion and evaluation. See pages 19-23. (15 minutes)
- Additional resources and information. See pages 24. (5-10 minutes)
Workshop Objectives:
- Participants learn about resilience and its importance for child development.
- Participants reflect on ways to be positive role models for their children.
- Participants learn ways to boost their children’s ability to bounce back from life’s challenges and thrive.
Key Messages:
- Everyone has the capacity for resilience. Building resilience is something we work on throughout our lives.
- Parents are the most important people in their children’s lives. They have the biggest role to play in helping their children develop strengths that support resilience.
- Together, with the support of other caring family and community members, you can boost your children’s resilience through your everyday interactions and role modeling.
- All children are different – there are no magic solutions to build resilience in children. Being flexible with approaches and maintaining a caring relationship with children are the most promising ways to enhance children’s capacity for resilience.
- Taking care of yourself makes you healthier, better equipped to parent and able to meet life’s challenges. Children watch and learn positive self-care strategies from their parents.