I met a remarkable man some years ago. He was a child in the Warsaw Ghetto. After the ghetto’s liquidation, separated from his family, he walked the streets of Poland, singing in return for bread. He was caught, sent to concentration camps and survived.

When he was liberated, he ended up in Palestine and defended Masada during the War of Independence.

Struggles such as these are barely imaginable to our “snowflake generation”. Today we are made sad and anxious by much less painful experiences than those of our grandparents. Have we become more sensitive or just less resilient? Resilience is defined as how effectively we can adapt to difficult situations and losses. Here are five ways to develop resilience for yourself and your children.

Practise zooming out
One feature of resilience is the ability to zoom out and see your experience from a wider perspective. This leads to hopefulness and expansiveness, avoiding self-absorption.

Unfortunately, social media encourages the opposite process — magnifying your own experiences, giving them increased importance. This narrowing-in encourages insular feelings, hyper-introspection and self-pity. Ironically, the more you inflate your significance, the lower your self-esteem becomes, hampering your ability to see the bigger picture while reducing your resilience.

Contribute to others
Contributing to those around makes it easier for us to put our difficulties into perspective, and it also reminds us of our usefulness.

If you are helpful and needed, your self-esteem is enhanced, which increases your resilience. Perhaps the recent societal drive to focus on self-fulfillment has come at the expense of our sense of duty, helpfulness and contribution to those around us.

Kindness and generosity — caring for those who are worse off — is not only nice, it is essential if we are to become stronger human beings.

Create a strong independent identity.
I heard a story of a man who was imprisoned in Siberia for supporting Jewish escapees from the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Although his fellow inmates were despondent at losing their careers, reputations and families while in the labour camp, he was always positive.

He believed that just as he had been fulfilling God’s will when he was free, he was also so doing whenhe was enslaved. This strong sense of self based on his faith carried him through the most desperate of times.

Many of us are lucky to have a strong sense of Jewish identity. Strengthening it further only adds to your ability to withstand challenges by relying on deep appreciation of existential and spiritual meaningfulness.
An identity that is not swayed by “likes”, statuses or others’ opinion and has an inherent meaningfulness is resilience embodied.

Don’t let pain scare you
Pain and worry are part of life and will always be so. In the last century our healthcare has become so sophisticated that we rarely experience pain, especially during our early lives.

This is wonderful, of course, but it also comes with the distinct disadvantage that we are not used to living with and managing discomfort. The ability to hold pain, discomfort and worry is key to becoming resilient. Many parents unintentionally reinforce their children’s anxiety by keeping them away from anything that they are scared of. But this only exacerbates their fear. It is important to allow ourselves and our children to experience some discomfort as they navigate their challenges in life (as long as it does not jeopardise their safety). Believe in them and that they will find a way to get through OK.

Rely on your village to raise your child with you
In an initial longitudinal study exploring which children from high-risk, deprived backgrounds managed to do well in life, one factor emerged. If the children had an adult, from within their family or network, who believed in them during their childhood, they were more likely to adapt to their challenges.

Similarly, children who attracted more attention from friends and caregivers were also more likely to do well. Parents have limited resources and are often under pressure in all sorts of ways. Giving your children the opportunity to receive positive support, validation and attention from trusted adults can imbue them with confidence and strength.

Some potential for resilience is innate but mostly resilience can be developed.
It is never too late to become more resilient and to believe that you can face the next challenge that comes around the corner with belief, positivity and hope.