Family strategies to support and develop resilience in early childhood

Abstract

Early childhood is an important time for the development of resilience. A recently completed study has followed three cohorts of resilient children and young people living in disadvantaged areas in Victoria, Australia, through different transitions in their educational careers. This paper focuses on the early childhood cohort, where we have followed children from kindergarten/preschool into primary school. Using data gathered primarily through interviews with parents (mothers in each case), this paper presents a qualitative naturalistic sub-study that used deductive thematic analysis to explore the different strategies used by families to support their child’s resilience. Our findings highlight that resilience was a salient concept for all of the mothers in the study and each mother articulated a range of strategies they used within the family to try and support their child’s development and resilience. These strategies were constrained by the settings in which the families lived.

Keywords:

• resilience
• early childhood
• family strategies

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge our industry partners in the work, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) in Victoria, Australia, VicHealth (the state-wide health promotion agency) and Community Connections (a state-wide NGO). We would also like to acknowledge other team members who worked on the wider study. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the families who participated in the study without whom this work would not have been possible.

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [Grant No. LP0990128], with contributory funding from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) in Victoria, Australia, and VicHealth.