Building Resilience in Children: Dr. Mary Alvord on Coping, Practice, and School-Scale Programs

In this Speaking of Psychology episode, Dr. Mary Alvord defines resilience as more than surviving trauma, emphasizing the ability to adapt to daily life stressors and to bounce back from setbacks. She outlines foundational skills such as agency and control, problem solving, emotional regulation, and social connections, and shares practical steps for caregivers—sleep, nutrition, calming techniques like 5-finger breathing, and modeling resilience. The conversation also covers how resilience-building programs can be scaled to schools through the Resilience Builder Program and Resilience Across Borders, including teacher-led adaptations and parent newsletters. The discussion touches on the pandemic’s impact on children, recognizing signs of low resilience, and the nuanced distinction between grit and broad coping skills.

Introduction: Defining resilience in children

Dr. Mary Alvord, a clinical psychologist with decades of experience, explains that resilience extends beyond reacting to severe hardship. In practice, resilience means being able to adapt to the stresses of daily life and to recover from the everyday setbacks that kids encounter at home, in school, and with peers. She notes that resilience can include children with ADHD or learning differences, reframing resilience as an assets-based process rather than a deficit correction. "resilience is a broad set of skills, and it certainly incorporates grit" - Dr. Mary Alvord.

Foundational skills and everyday practices

The conversation centers on agency, control, and an action mindset. Alvord emphasizes that children should feel able to influence small changes within their lives and that this sense of agency supports coping rather than passivity. She highlights essential self-regulation, sleep, nutrition, and mood regulation as the bedrock of resilience. Tools such as 5-finger breathing and progressive muscle relaxation are discussed as practical techniques that families can learn and practice together. She also describes using turtle imagery to teach kids how to tense and then release physical tension, a strategy that is accessible to younger children and adaptable for older kids. A free suite of self-regulation videos is available on the Resilience website to help families practice these skills with their children or themselves. "First and foremost is that they start feeling agency or control over what they can control and what they can't" - Dr. Mary Alvord.

Grit vs resilience: how the concepts relate

Alvord distinguishes resilience from grit, describing resilience as a broad toolkit of coping skills while grit is about perseverance toward goals. She frames resilience as a holistic construct that includes problem solving, reframing challenges as opportunities, and building perseverance as part of a larger capacity to cope with adversity. "resilience is a broad set of skills, and it certainly incorporates grit" - Dr. Mary Alvord.

Recognizing signs of low resilience and responding

The podcast discusses warning signals such as sudden behavioral changes, withdrawal, or lethargy. Alvord notes that many kids may not verbalize distress and that attentive listening, reflective responding, and balancing attention to what’s not going well with what is going well can help re-engage a child in daily life, including school. She cautions against labeling children as lazy and highlights the possibility that learning demands can be intrinsically challenging for some students. "I don't believe that kids are lazy" - Dr. Mary Alvord.

Resilience-building programs in schools: evidence and scaling

The Resilience Builder Program is a group-based intervention developed for practice in the 1990s and later scaled through Resilience Across Borders and partnerships with Catholic University. Randomized controlled trials in DC-area schools showed improvements in self-mastery, agency, academic motivation, classroom engagement, and interpersonal skills. In response to school demand, the program was adapted for classroom leaders—teachers—using short videos, 15-minute lessons, and a parent component with newsletters in English and Spanish. The program’s universal implementation means all students in participating classes receive the curriculum, with control groups receiving the training later in the school year. "We adapted the original Resilience Builder program so that teachers could lead it" - Dr. Mary Alvord.

Technology and resilience: opportunities and cautions

Technology is described as a tool to practice resilience skills, not a substitute for human interaction. Alvord discusses using digital resources to simulate social situations for shy or socially anxious youths, provide feedback on nonverbal cues, and support skill-building in a monitored, balanced way. She stresses that the goal is practice, not perfection, and highlights concerns about privacy that should be addressed in any tech-enabled program.

Pandemic effects and the path forward

Looking back at the pandemic, Alvord acknowledges learning lags and social isolation but notes that current developments show signs of recovery when families and schools actively re-engage children in social interactions and academics. She highlights ongoing research and longitudinal data collection to track lasting effects of resilience-building interventions and to inform broader dissemination. She also speaks about expanding resilience-focused content to older students and incorporating resilience modules into teacher education.

Personal motivation and impact

Dr. Alvord shares her personal history and the sense of mission underpinning her work. Her family’s experiences of migration and adaptation informed her focus on resilience and the importance of community supports during times of transition. She emphasizes that resilience is an ordinary, learnable set of skills that can be taught to anyone, anywhere, with the right supports. "ordinary magic" - Dr. Mary Alvord.

What’s next

The discussion closes with a look ahead to continued research, additional scale-up of the Resilience Builder Program in more schools, longitudinal data collection, and integration of resilience training into professional education for teachers and clinicians. Alvord envisions a world where resilience-building skills are accessible to all children, teens, and adults, supporting healthier, more confident communities. "We want to reach out further, do trainings to teachers, hopefully at some point to actually incorporate it in teacher education" - Dr. Mary Alvord.