Rethinking Resilience

By Kelly Hutton

Does our understanding of resilience outstrip our children's actual development? This week, I explore a general understanding of resilience in parenting and education circles and apply it to child development. Read on for more...

Resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties, a demonstration of toughness...

Understanding our own definitions of resilience

Resilience is not a fixed trait that children either have or do not have. Research tells us it's common, constantly shifting, and shaped by everything from biology to culture. Most importantly, it can be nurtured when we target the right support at the right time.

Often, it can become one of those buzzwords, thrown around with good intentions... "children need to be resilient," "we must teach resilience," "they'll be fine, kids are resilient." However, I think it's a much more interesting story than that...

I have written about resilience before and why our children need to do the hard things (read that here: Why We Need to Help Our Children Do Hard Things: Building Resilience ), and it was this that got me thinking... yes, we need to get our children to do the hard things (with support!), but not at the cost of allowing them to develop.

Maston and Barnes (2018) describe it as "the capacity of a system to adapt successfully to challenges that threaten function, survival, or future development". Crucially, systems that include the child, their family, school, community, culture, and wider ecology. In other words, resilience is common, dynamic and malleable, and it depends on the right support at the right time.

This means our expectations of what resilience "should" look like must shift as our children grow. It also means that children with different histories, especially those with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) will show resilience differently and need scaffolding. Here, I explore what developmentally appropiate resilience looks like from infancy to adolescence, how ACEs shape these pathways, and how we can support children in ways that truly align with the science.

Why "doing the hard things" might not always be enough...

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I described the importance of helping children to do the hard things, and that largely remains true, but science has reminded me that challenge without support is not resilience-building, but it is stress-exposure.

Resilience emerges from adaptive systems, including:

• secure relationships

• self-regulation skills

• executive functioning

• cultural identity and meaning-making

• community belonging

• predictable routines and structures

These systems are nurtured through co-regulation, attunment, and developmentally appropiate expectations. And this is where many well-meaning adults may go wrong: we expect resilient behaviours that are simply not possible, or healthy, at certain developmental stages.

Infancy: where resilience = synchrony, not independence

Infants are not meant to "self-soothe," "cope" or "be resilient". Their resilience is built through biobehavioural synchrony, the moment-to-moment coordination of psychological and emotional states with a caregiver.

Konrad & Puetz (2024) describe this synchrony as foundational for stress regulation, attachment, and later interpersonal functioning. They emphasise that early resilience depends on the caregiver's ability to "flexibly synchronise with and segregate from the child's arousal states"

Developmentally appropiate resilience in infancy looks like:

• seeking comfort

• signalling distress

• relying on adults for regulation

• forming secure attachments

• experiencing predictable routines

Not "coping alone," "being easy", or "not crying"

Infants who are exposed to ACEs, such as maltreatment, neglect, or household dysfunction, often experience disrupted synchrony. This can alter stress physiology, attachment patterns, and later social functioning.

Early Childhood: Resilience = co-regulation and emerging autonmny

Toddlers and preschoolers begin developing self-other distinction, emotional understanding, and early self-regulation, but they do this only through cycles of attunements -> misattunement -> repair.

This is where resilience is practised.

Masten's (2018) shortlist for protective systems includes:

• skilled caregiving

• routines and rituals

• emotional security

• early executive function skills (working memory, organisation, meta cognition etc)

• opportunities for mastery

Developmental appropiate resilience looks like:

• trying again after frustration

• tolerating small amounts of stress with support

• using adults as a secure base

• beginning to use simple coping strategies

• expressing big feelings safely

Children with ACEs may show:

• hypervigilence

• emotional dysregulation

• avoidance

• controlling behaviours

• difficult trusting adults

These are not "behaviour problems", they are adaptations made from earlier environments. This is what is meant when we say "behaviour is a form of communication"

Middle childhood: resilience = skills, relationships, and belonging

School-aged children expand this resilience toolkit through:

• peer relationships

• problem-solving

• moral development

• increasing independence

• participation in community or school life

Ungar's (2023) multisystematic model helps us to understand that resilience is not just internal; it's a child's ability to navigate resources and negotiate for them to be provided in culturally meaningful ways.

Developmental resilience, therefore, looks like:

• seeking help from trusted adults

• using learned coping strategies

• managing school challenges with support

• forming friendships

• contributing to family or school life

Children with ACEs may struggle with:

• trust and reciprocity

• emotional regulation

• attention and executive functioning

• interpreting social cues

  managing stress in learning environments

This is where schools often misinterpret trauma responses as "non-compliance."

Adolescence: resilience = identity, autonomy, and meaning

Adolescence, the wonderful stage of profound neurobiological and social change. It is a window of opportunity for resilience, as executive functioning, identity, and future orientation develop rapidly.

Masten and Barnes (2018) note that many "late bloomers" turn their lives around during this period when opportunities, support, and motivation converge.

Developmentally appropiate resilience looks like:

• forming identity and values

• navigating peer relationships

• taking healthy risks

• developing long-term goals

• contributing to the community

• seeking autonomy whilst staying connected

Adolescents with ACEs, however, face additional challenges. The research shows maltreatment has stronger effects on mental health than household dysfunction alone, particularly for depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, and externalising behaviours.

They may need:

• trauma-informed mental health support

• mentoring

• safe peer groups

• opportunities for mastery

• predictable environments

• adults who hold high expectations without pressure

Resilience looks different for different children

The ACEs literature in unequivical; adversity accumulates, and its effects are dose-dependent. It was Felitti et al. (1998) who found a graded relationship between the number of ACEs and later health, mental health and behavioural outcomes.

But ACEs do not determine destiny.

Ungar's (2023) multisystemic resilience research shows us that children thrive when multiple systems, such as family, school, community, and culture, provide accessible, meaningful resources.

Konrad & Puetz (2024) add that early maltreatment can disrupt biobehavioural synchrony and self-other boundaries, shaping how children relate to others and regulate emotion across the lifespan.

This means:

• Some children need more co-regulation for longer (see the impact of the 2x10 method study described in last week's blog post: https://www.nurturedtogether.co.uk/post/when-inclusion-is-not-inclusive)

• Some children need relational repair before skill-building

• Some need reduced demands, not increased pressure

• Some need cultural, community, or identity-based supports (which, in my opinion, are massively undervalued).

• Some need trauma-informed environments to access learning.

Resilience is not built by "toughening up children" but by meeting them where they are developmentally and contextually.

What should we expect?

Age	What Resilience Looks Like	What Adults Should Provide
Infancy	Seeking comfort, signalling distress	Attunement, co-regulation, predictable care
Early Childhood	Trying again, expressing feelings, using adults for support	Emotional coaching, routines, scaffolding
Middle Childhood	Problem-solving, friendship skills, help-seeking	Skill-building, belonging, safe learning environments
Adolescence	Identity exploration, autonomy with connection	Mentoring, boundaries, opportunities, trauma-informed support

Children with ACEs may move through these stages differently, as will children with developmental additional needs or disorders. This is not a deficit, but an adaptation that needs to be made.

Resilience: the shared journey

If we truly want resilient children, we must stop asking, "How do we make them tougher?" a question I should have asked myself before I wrote the previous blog on the subject. But this allows us to ask

"What systems around the child need strengthening so they can thrive?"

Because resilience is not forged in isolation. It is cultivated in relationships, communities, and cultures that honour developmental needs and recognise the impact of adversity.

Some children will need more from us, more time, more patience, more co-regulation, more relational repair. This isn't a sign of weakness, but a sign that their early systems were overloaded, and they are asking, through behaviour, emotion or withdrawal, for the support that builds resilience, not the pressure that breaks it.

When we adjust our expectations to development, context, and lived experience, we stop demanding resilience and start creating conditions for resilience to grow.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I have found it an incredibly interesting topic to keep exploring, and it has reinforced my thinking of what resilience can look like in our children. Share a comment or find me on the socials! Find the links below

Reference List:

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998).   Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.   American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.

Karatekin, C., & Hill, M. (2018).   Expanding the original definition of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).   Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 12, 289–306.

Konrad, K., & Puetz, V. B. (2024).   A context‑dependent model of resilient functioning after childhood maltreatment: The case for flexible biobehavioral synchrony.   Translational Psychiatry, 14, 388.

Luthar, S. S. (2003).   The culture of affluence: Psychological costs of material wealth.   Child Development, 74(6), 1581–1593.

Masten, A. S., & Barnes, A. J. (2018).   Resilience in children: Developmental perspectives.   Children, 5(7), 98.

Ungar, M., Theron, L., & Höltge, J. (2023).   Multisystemic approaches to researching young people’s resilience: Discovering culturally and contextually sensitive accounts of thriving under adversity.   Development and Psychopathology, 35, 2199–2213.