Children’s Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs has begun an initiative to build “resiliency” among children through coaching in two local schools.

“Colorado’s child suicide rate is higher than it’s ever been before,” said Margaret Sabin, the president of Children’s Colorado’s southern region. “There is more of a need than ever for children to have the tools they will need to work through life’s hardships, disappointments and challenges in a healthy, positive way.” 

This year, sixth-grade students at Eagleview Middle School and fifth-grade students at Monroe Elementary School may opt to participate in a pilot program of meeting with coaches each week. The coaches will address adult-child relationships, self-sufficiency and control, adaptive skills, and “mobilizing sources of faith, hope, and cultural tradition.”

“Our hope is to be able to teach them these things at the fifth and sixth grade level to prepare them for the future and hopefully help stop problems before they start or deal with them healthily when they do,” said Erin Heberlein, the Colorado Springs hospital’s lead health coach.

Children’s diets, sleep schedules, and time in front of screens will also be part of the coaches’ evaluations.

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University reports that resilience is the ability to overcome serious hardship, citing the importance of parental influence and biological characteristics to building resilience in children.

“One way to understand the development of resilience is to visualize a balance scale or seesaw,” the Center explains. “Protective experiences and coping skills on one side counterbalance significant adversity on the other. Resilience is evident when a child’s health and development tips toward positive outcomes — even when a heavy load of factors is stacked on the negative outcome side.”