Alia Bojilova - The road less travelled to resilience
REFLECTION: I was lucky enough to listen to Alia Bojilova as part of the Pastoral Care team. I found her presentation interesting and thought-provoking. I have listened to several speakers in the past about the role of the brain in our response to stress but what I found interesting in Alia's presentation was the distinction that stress is what an individual perceives as stressful. This distinction isn't made by many psychologists but I think it is particularly important to keep in mind when thinking about children. As adults it is very easy for us to dismiss stresses and worries of children as we have already forgotten how it felt to have these worries. I thought the image of 'gardening' resilience is a powerful one to use with children. This is a very simple way of demonstrating the resilience takes time to build and develop. I will use this with my girls next term as we start to look at transitioning to year 4. The four key pillars to resilience would ...