How We Build Resilience At College And At Home
A support network is an important part of creating resilience. PACE UNIVERSITY
There is a mental health crisis on America’s college campuses.
Increasingly, today’s students are lonely. More and more of them are anxious. Many are experiencing depression. And that’s leading them to college counseling centers at ever-increasing rates. One major recent study showed that 75% of current college students say they need help for emotional or mental health problems.
Most colleges and universities are determined to support their students so that they can succeed in their studies. But demands on counseling centers are becoming so great that it’s hard for them to meet students’ counseling needs.
Part of the solution is working to develop resilience among our incoming college students.
Resilience, in its literal definition, means being able to withstand or quickly bounce back from challenging situations. In psychological terms, resilience means knowing how to react to adversity, trauma or stress. It means knowing how to acknowledge these roadblocks, address them and adapt to them.
Building resilience means building an ability to bounce back from the things life throws at all of us. And it’s key for effective functioning as an adult—or as a college student.
The American Psychological Association recommends several ways people can work to build their resilience. The most important ones include:
Having a strong network of supportive people who will listen to your problems.
Working toward goals by focusing on small steps. Moving forward toward a solution will remind you that you have control over what’s happening.
Developing self-confidence. The more you’re able to bounce back from setbacks, the more you’ll know that you’ll be able to do it the next time you face a hurdle.
Many of the life skills I always emphasize for college students are also integral to building resilience.
Students should remember to take care of themselves: eating regularly, exercising and getting enough sleep. People work better and think better when they’re taking care of their physical self. And they’re better equipped to handle challenges when they’re thinking more clearly.
Keeping things in perspective is essential for students. Simply put: bad things happen. Life changes, and it’s important to resist the temptation to catastrophize. A resilient student is able to acknowledge that a setback isn’t the end of the world.
And students should keep social media in perspective. We all have a temptation to get overly engrossed in all those photos and likes and memes, but resiliency means knowing how to use social media productively. It’s not helpful for anyone to waste time getting sucked into negativity.
At colleges and universities, we help by providing not just counseling resources but also the less formal networks that help build resilience. It’s why clubs and activities are important, because they create communities of common interest. It’s why resident assistants and peer counselors make a difference, because they can help students develop coping strategies so that small problems don’t become big ones.
It’s why many colleges and universities offer courses like the UNV 101 class I teach at Pace, where we help incoming students learn how to be better, more effective students—students who have strategies for managing their schoolwork and lives, and who know where to turn for help when they need it.
Parents can help, too. Before you send your students off to college, you can help them build resilience and emotional maturity by making sure they’re ready for life on their own.
Make sure your kids know how to cook for themselves, do laundry, and manage their money. If they’re being treated for any mental-health issues, make sure there’s a plan for continuing care once they get to college. Students will be more resilient when they’re starting from a strong footing.
It can also help to tell your kids about struggles you’ve faced, and how you overcame them. I often tell first-year students about my freshman calculus class, when I got the worst grade I’d ever received on a midterm and thought I’d never be able to pass the class. But I asked for help, worked with a tutor, and ultimately pulled through. That kind of context can help students understand that others have built resilience, too.
College is about trying new things. That can lead to wonderful triumphs—and sometimes to stumbles. When they stumble, students need to know how to brush themselves off and keep going. Everyone finds their own best way of doing that. That’s ultimately what resilience is all about.
by Marvin Krislov