Definition
We do not equate resilience with final endpoints of success such as graduation from high school or college with a high grade point average or total recovery from an eating disorder or an alcohol or drug problem, or full disengagement from a destructive friendship. We see resilience as the process of struggling with hardship. That process progresses by accumulating small successes that occur side by side with failures, setbacks, and disappointments.
The concept of resilience as struggle is in contrast to typical media coverage of "resilient kids" or superkids who, having come from difficult circumstances, achieve success once and for all. Stories of superkids downplay or completely eliminate the struggle involved in being resilient. They ignore the lingering pain and the damage that hardship leaves. They can demoralize real youth who are trying daily to conquer their problems but see no end to them as well as teachers and youth workers whose successes with teens are not nearly so stunning or complete as the superkids'.
Practical Applications of Resilience as Paradox
If you are a clinician, teacher, or prevention specialist the concept of resilience as struggle will free you from a pre-determined standard of success for judging your own effectiveness. It is a concept that allows you to honor the efforts youth are making to help themselves whether or not those efforts lead to positive results, and it is a vehicle for expressing the respect and affirmation needed by them in order to persist.
The concept of resilience as struggle is fully illustrated in teens' own words in The Struggle to be Strong: True Stories by Teens about Overcoming Tough Times. An accompanying leader's guide gives detailed suggestions for using the stories with youth individually and in groups.
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