Wellbeing and Resilience in children

Wellbeing and Resilience in children

Schools are a key setting in which to promote wellbeing and resilience of students as well as academic learning.  There are many evidences that highlights the whole-school approach in promoting students wellbeing and resilience. The evidence identifies the various ways in which school practice makes an impact on student wellbeing, including the contribution that teachers can make to wellbeing through positive engagement and the contribution that explicit curriculum can make to building socially and emotionally literate, resilient young people. Evidence also shows that in promoting students wellbeing has positive effects on academic learning outcomes.

What is wellbeing?
The term ‘wellbeing’ is now well used in  education sector is tending to replace the term such as ‘student welfare’ and ‘student health’. This is because it encompasses more than the notion of physical and material health of the children and young people.  It incorporates sources to the interconnected nature of social, physical, mental, relational  and material health of children and young people. As well as their experience of engagement in life and in learning.

In educational context, ‘wellbeing’ has been identified as both an outcome and a process which facilitates children’s  progression and learning outcomes.
In order to support children and young people’s  wellbeing, it is essential to know how they subjectively experience wellbeing.

Various factors were perceived to be important, including their *emotional wellbeing *physical health *physical and emotional safety *confidence in their capabilities *pleasure and joy of learning *inner strength and spirit * sense of interconnection with life * overall satisfaction with life and so on.

The term ‘Resilience’  signifies the capacity to cope, learn and thrive in the face of change, challenge or adversity. Everyone encounters challenge, and everyone has a degree of resilience, however some children and young people are more resilient than others. Those with higher resiliency are more likely to thrive in learning and less likely to suffer from social and psychological health problems (Benard 2004).

How can school promote wellbeing and resilience?
1. Social and emotional competency: Students are more likely to experience wellbeing when they have social and emotional skills. This can be promoted through SEL[Social and Emotional Learning] curriculum including resilience skill, emotional literacy skill and personal achievement skill.

2. Positive emotions: positive emotion can promote wellbeing by increasing individual’s capacity for optimistic thinking and problem solving. This can be done in schools by policies and programs that encourage a sense of belonging, satisfaction, pride, enjoyment and optimism.

3. Positive relationship:Positive teacher-student and peer relationship are main factors to promote school connectedness.

4. Engagement through strength: wellbeing and academic achievement are likely when students are aware of their strength and have opportunities to demonstrate and develop them at school.

5. A case of meaning and purpose:creating opportunities for the students to develop a sense of meaning [tasks that have impact on others beyond themselves] and purpose [pursue worthwhile goals] enhances wellbeing and  achievement.