Recognising mood, wellbeing and resilience

As we have already said, resilience is important and reflects someone’s ability to respond to stress and or unexcepted situations. How much emotional resilience someone may have is determined by a number of factors and we will go onto talk about them shortly.

These general descriptions lie at opposite ends of the wellbeing range, and in reality many children experience fluctuating levels of wellbeing and resilience, and may show differing levels in different situations and across different relationships. It is important to observe when differences are being seen to help consider and identify factors within these contexts that are having a helpful or unhelpful impact upon the children and young people.

A child or young person with good emotional wellbeing and resilience usually is likely to be progressing in school, copes well with day-to-day stressors, has good relationships with their family and friends, feels confident and can communicate their needs, and has interests and hobbies they enjoy and are happy to talk about.

Conversely, a child or young person with low emotional wellbeing and resilience is more likely to experience difficulties in school, they may be socially isolated and have problems in their friendship group, have low self-esteem and lack the confidence to try new things, may be reluctant to communicate when they are struggling, and seem to be enjoying life less.

You can read more about emotional reliance and how to promote it both for yourself and others online.

In the next steps, we will start to talk in more detail about risk and protective factors that can impact a child and young person’s mental health.