This blog looks at how having resilience can benefit children who have been exposed to trauma and who have a higher ACE score. 

Childhood adversity can create harmful levels of stress which impact healthy brain development. This can result in long-term effects on learning, behaviour and health. However it is important to stress that not every person who has experienced a traumatic childhood grows up to be emotionally or physically or unhealthy. Some children are less susceptible to the negative effects of their surroundings and carry less stress with them into adulthood.

Can adverse childhood experiences ever have a positive impact?

Many people come through extremely challenging childhoods, seemingly unscathed. They seem to bounce back, or show resilience, despite everything. There is evidence that, depending on a child’s temperament, exposure to problematic experiences can make a child either more hardy or very vulnerable to later problems.

Some children are able to handle the mood swings and outbursts of unstable parents and they may develop a keen ability to detect the emotions of others as well as being able to read non-verbal cues. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to move between different tasks and applying what you learn from one situation toward solving a problem in another situation. The mentally flexible person looks for inventive strategies and novel solutions. Children who fair better in adverse conditions may well show the ability to be more cognitively flexible.

Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviours, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone. According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is “ the ability to adapt in the face of adversity, tragedy, threats or significant stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors.”

It doesn’t mean we won’t be challenged

Resilience refers to bouncing back from difficult experiences in life. There is nothing extraordinary about resilience. People often demonstrate resilience in times of adversity. However, being resilient does not mean that a person will not experience difficulty or distress, as emotional pain is common for people when they suffer from a major adversity or trauma. In fact, the path to resilience often involves considerable emotional pain.People and children who are resilient, embrace the thinking that adverse experiences do not define who they are. They also can think about past events in their lives that were traumatic and can try to reframe them in a way that is constructive. They are able to find strength in their struggle and ultimately can overcome the challenges and adversity that was faced in childhood.

How we build resilience

In childhood, resiliency can come from having a caring adult in a child’s life. Resiliency can also come from having meaningful moments such as an academic achievement or getting praise from teachers or mentors. In adulthood, we also need to feel that others value us, whether our friends and family or our work colleagues. We need to practice self care in whatever ways as appropriate to us: For example, we need to know we are beginning to feel burned out and then taking a step back to rest and recuperate. We might look closely at our boundaries in our relationships with others – do we need to step back and say “no” sometimes? We might practice mindfulness or meditation, involve ourselves in a hobby that we love or some form of exercise. We might need to take time out to reflect and regroup – if we are able to take the time to reflect upon our experiences, then we will be able to build a greater level of resilience.

My next blog looks at building resilience in more depth.

Contact Me

If you are struggling with any of the issues raised in this article, or indeed any other emotional issues or life challenges and would like to talk things over in complete confidentiality, call Alison Winfield, Mindfully Well Counselling Cork on 087 9934541.

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