Building student resilience yields positive mental health behaviors

There is an oft-cited parable in children’s mental health about two individuals fishing on the banks of a river. In the midst of their outing, they notice a child in the middle of the river, struggling to stay afloat and in obvious danger. One of the anglers drops their fishing pole, swims out and brings the child to safety on the shore.  No sooner does the angler resume fishing then another child comes floating down the river, struggling to keep their head above water. Again, the angler swims out and rescues the child.  When the situation occurs a third time, the angler throws down their fishing rod and starts to walk away leading the second angler to ask, “Aren’t you going to save that child too?” The first angler responds, “No, I am going upstream to stop whatever is throwing these children into the river.”

This allegory may well represent the situation that many educators may find themselves in as students return to school this fall.

With limited resources–a big one being time–and so many students in need, teachers could be faced with the dilemma of either focusing on students who are in crisis or “going upstream” to provide supports to all of their students to forestall the development of mental health concerns. This is, of course, a false dichotomy; educators, student support personnel, and administrators do their best to support all children. Nevertheless, students in crisis can exhaust schools’ resources leading to a lack of focused attention on prevention, or promotion of positive mental health behaviors.

The promotion of student resilience, the ability to cope successfully with adversity, is a useful approach for addressing: 1) supporting students in crisis, 2) helping to prevent additional students from developing emotional and behavioral problems, and 3) promoting the well-being of all students.

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Paul LeBuffe

Vice President of Research and Development at Aperture Education

For the past 25 years, Paul’s career has focused on strength-based approaches to promoting social and emotional competence and resilience in children, youth, and the adults who care for them. Believing that such approaches should be data-driven, Paul has authored many widely used, strength-based assessments of behaviors related to children and adolescents’ social and emotional strengths and needs including the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment and most recently the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) for grades K-12.These assessments have been adopted by more than 5,000 school districts, out-of-school-time programs, and early care and education programs both in the United States and internationally.More than 10 million children and youth have been assessed with these tools and the results used by professionals and parents to promote their social and emotional competence, foster their resilience, and build the skills these children will need for school and life success. Paul lives in Downingtown, PA with his wife, Penny, a special education teacher.

Latest posts by Paul LeBuffe (see all)

• Promoting student choice through SEL self-assessment - January 31, 2022
• How social and emotional competence leads to educational equity - October 26, 2021
• Building student resilience yields positive mental health behaviors - September 8, 2021