5 Developing resilience for the athletic development journey

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Image of female wheelchair athlete on courtside during a break in play with towel over her head

As highlighted by Tudor, Sarkar and Spray (2020) in Session 1, the supported development of resilience could start in childhood, for example in the school PE setting. Although it is important to highlight that our resilience levels will fluctuate over time and, indeed, often be specific for particular aspects of our lives, it could be of benefit to consider the development of resilience in the early stages of an athlete’s life.

Arguably, an athlete’s family are an influential factor in creating opportunities to develop resilience. Watch the video ‘Building children’s resilience’ which is an example of a resource aimed at offering parental guidance on children’s resilience.

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Transcript: Building children’s resilience

[TEXT ON SCREEN:

Help build your child’s resilience]

NARRATOR:

There are a number of things that can help build your child’s resilience. Allow children to push their boundaries by taking healthy risks, like learning a new skill. Empower children to fix their problems and ask for support when they experience difficulty. Show them that you believe that they can cope.

Embrace them make mistakes and show them how your mistakes have helped you learn. Lead by example.

Support children in understanding and regulating their emotions while respecting where they are emotionally and not rushing them. We can teach them that emotions pass and are temporary. Identify and help label emotions, showing them how to manage it.

Show them how to reframe negative thoughts into positive ones. Encourage creativity through play, as this builds problem-solving skills, which in turn helps increase resilience.

Encourage exercise, as the neurochemicals released to help the brain to be more resilient to stress. Show our children unconditional love.

For more ideas to help your child with anxieties, follow the link in the description.

[TEXT ON SCREEN:

HomeStart Central Bedfordshire. Thanks to: BBC Children in Need and Erin May, MSc MBACP Children’s Therapist]

End transcript: Building children’s resilience

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Building children’s resilience

As highlighted in the video, participating in physical activity and exercise can facilitate the development of resilience. In their research examining young gymnasts and their coaches, White and Bennie (2015) found that resilience can be cultivated through participation in sport. The research, focusing on athlete and coach perceptions on the development of resilience in community-level gymnastics, highlighted that gymnastics participation resulted in the development of life skills, self-efficacy and self-esteem, in addition to resilience. Where much of the research into resilience in sport has focused on elite sport, this community-level research allows us to see the benefits of sport participation more widely.

We could conclude, therefore, that particularly with young athletes, the development of resilience can be facilitated by participation in sport and physical activity, but as you have seen this should be within an effective environment. Such experiences could support the young athlete as they continue on their athletic development journey.

In the last activity of this course, you are encouraged to reflect on your learning.