Neurodivergent youth with executive functioning challenges may forget assignments, struggle with organization, or feel overwhelmed with school or work demands. For these learners, every setback chips away at their confidence, making it harder for them to “bounce back.” These frustrations may become a part of daily life.
According to the Youth Right Now survey, half (48%) of youth report that if they don’t understand something right away, they stop trying to understand it. This suggests a need to build resiliency skills to help youth feel more empowered and less discouraged. Resiliency can help these students not only overcome these hurdles but grow stronger because of them.
In this article, we’ll explore resilience, a skill that helps students adapt to challenges in and out of the classroom. Resilience isn’t just about surviving the tough moments; it’s about feeling stronger and more capable, especially for those navigating executive functioning (EF) difficulties.
What is Resilience?
Resilience is the ability to adapt, recover from setbacks, and continue to move forward even in the face of challenges. Resilience fosters long-term growth, self-confidence, and emotional well-being in addition to coping with academic pressure. For students with executive functioning challenges, resilience is a tool that can help students learn to grow from their mistakes and develop better self-confidence.
The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University described resilience as a “seesaw” with positive experiences on one side and negative experiences on the other. There is no single experience that builds resilience; it is the total effect of all negative and positive experiences, both biological and environmental. It is especially important for students who experience chronic stress to develop resilience.
How to Measure Resilience
Resiliency can be understood as either a set of traits, an outcome, or a process (Ahern, Kiehl, Lou Sole, & Byers, 2006, p. 104). Much of this article focuses on resiliency as a process of learning skills to adapt and cope with stressors. When assessing resilience, we often measure either our psychological coping abilities or physical responses to stress (Ahern, Kiehl, Lou Sole, & Byers, 2006, p. 104). These abilities and responses are typically gathered through self-reported rating scales or through observation of coping behavior.
Positive Psychology provides information on various resiliency rating scales that can be completed to get an idea of how adolescents and young adults navigate change and “bounce back” from stress. For example, two of these scales include the Brief Resilience Scale and the Academic Resilience Scale, which could be used informally to learn more about a person’s resilience before and after being taught skills to help them overcome social or academic stress.
How to Develop Resilience
Many factors contribute to resilience, including (but not limited to) personal characteristics (e.g., coping style, confidence, regulation, problem-solving), biology (e.g., genetics, brain development, health, stress responses), social connections (e.g., family relationships, peer support, role models, communication skills), and community factors (e.g., access to resources, safety, community involvement, school climate, cultural identity). However, resilience is also a skill. Although we are impacted by positive and negative experiences in life, we can learn techniques to help us overcome hardships.
Executive Functioning & Resilience as Protective and/or Risk Factors
A protective factor is something that reduces the effects of other stressors or risks. Well-developed executive functions have been described as a protective factor when students are faced with adverse experiences in the home, school, or community. For example, students who are able to self-regulate and problem-solve may be able to control their frustration when faced with a challenging task and can find ways to work through the problem independently.
A risk factor is something that is associated with additional struggles in someone’s life, which may contribute to more negative outcomes. Executive functions are also often affected by chronic stress. This means students more often in survival mode are less likely to develop EF skills, which may function as an additional risk factor. For example, students who struggle to self-regulate and problem-solve may respond to challenging situations in ways (e.g., strong emotional responses or avoiding the situation) that may make the problem harder to overcome later on.
Ways to Foster Resilience While Teaching Executive Functioning Skills
There are a few ways to help foster resilience while teaching students the necessary strategies for developing EF skills. Methods such as teaching a growth mindset, emotional regulation, problem-solving, flexibility, and seeking out social support help students persevere in the face of setbacks academically and emotionally.
Growth Mindset
Students with a growth mindset believe they can improve their skills through effort and learning. This is the opposite of a fixed mindset, which is the belief that one’s abilities cannot improve, which stops us from trying to learn new things and take on challenges.
For students with EF challenges, a growth mindset helps them stay open to learning and improving their EF skills. Students who view challenges as learning opportunities are more likely to persist and eventually succeed, which helps them grow. On the other hand, a fixed mindset can be harmful because it wrongfully convinces students that no amount of practice will improve their EF skills, so they may be quicker to give up when situations become challenging.
Strengthening Emotional Regulation Skills
Emotional regulation is how we manage and respond to emotional experiences in our environment. Students who control their emotional responses are better equipped to handle stress, frustration and disappointment, which are common as teens navigate academic and social changes.
Students with well-developed regulation skills can think clearly and problem-solve without reacting impulsively. When students have trouble regulating their emotions, they are more likely to feel overwhelmed and give up or avoid challenges altogether.
Teaching Problem-Solving and Flexibility
Problem-solving and cognitive flexibility are two areas of executive functioning that can impact student resilience. Problem-solving is our ability to identify a problem and come up with solutions to fix it. Flexibility is the ability to switch between tasks and demands in the environment, changing our behavior to adapt to the world around us.
Students who struggle with EF skills may struggle with one or both of these skills. Problem-solving can promote resilience by empowering students to independently find solutions to challenging situations at home or school. Flexibility can promote resilience by helping students identify that their current response to the situation is not helping them reach their goal, prompting them to try something new. Without these skills, students may appear to talk back, argue, or engage in other aggressive behaviors in an attempt to solve problems. This can become an additional risk factor, as this behavior may impact school achievement and social relationships.
Creating Social Connections and Support Systems
Having social support is when you have family, friends, or other people in the community who are available during times of need to provide psychological, physical, or financial support. Social support is a way for students to receive support, learn effective coping strategies, and feel supported during hardship. When people feel supported, they are less likely to take risks that may add to their experiences with stress.
Students with EF challenges may be more resilient when they have friends, family, or teachers they can consult during challenging times. Positive adult relationships can help model appropriate ways to problem-solve during hard times and provide guidance that helps them feel more confident in the future. Likewise, friendships can provide an outlet for students to vent frustration and receive support from others who may be going through similar challenges.
Additional Considerations
Here are a few extra considerations for families, teachers, and neurodivergent individuals to make when considering how to develop resiliency.
The Earlier, The Better
Like most tools and strategies, the earlier students can learn these skills, the more they can use them later on and adapt to challenges. Families and teachers can model resilience for young learners in day-to-day interactions. For example,
The Importance of Manageable Stress
Not all stress is harmful to students. Students often learn resilience through experience. Students should be encouraged to navigate typical obstacles and hardships by practicing overcoming them with the guidance of trusted adults and friends. This “productive struggle” helps students learn that they have the tools to overcome challenges and reinforces their ability to bounce back when they experience challenges later on. When students are shielded from day-to-day stressors, they may not develop the tools to address stressors independently later in life.
It’s important to note that some students may react more strongly to positive and negative experiences, and manageable stress will look different for different people.
Resilience is Not…
Resilience should not be confused with “toughing it out” or “faking a smile” when challenging situations arise. It’s important to teach students that resilient people still feel angry, sad, confused, or frustrated because that’s a normal part of the human experience. Resilient people also struggle, make mistakes, and experience failure. With all these things considered, resilient people learn from these experiences and feel confident that they can overcome these barriers with continued practice.
Next Steps
Now that you know some ways to help foster resilience in students with executive functioning challenges, you might be looking for some ways to help support your student. It can be hard to know where to start. Below are some free resources for you to use with your learner and some ways to seek out additional support if needed.
Take an EF Assessment
Problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, and self-regulation are three components of executive functioning skills. Use our free Executive Function Assessment to learn more about your areas of strength and challenges across these areas and more to help inform the type of tools you might need to become more resilient. Difficulties in these areas may indicate a need to learn skills to help your learner develop resilience.
Explore Coaching
Executive Functioning Coaching is an option for students who need direct support developing essential EF skills to help with academic, social, and daily living needs. Coaching uses a client-centered approach to foster the motivation and self-confidence necessary for students to take on challenges and experience success. The additional support of a coach can also contribute to developing resilience when facing later hardships. Learn more about coaching and how it can support your learner through a complimentary discovery meeting.
Other Professional Supports
Some students may experience traumatic events that impair their resilience, executive functioning, or overall well-being. In this case, it’s vital to seek out professional support to address ways to move forward. Take a look at this article for more information on the relationship between coaching and therapy and which one might be the best fit for your learner.
TL;DR – (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
Students with executive functioning challenges often face difficulties in academic and personal life, such as disorganization, forgetfulness, and feeling overwhelmed. These setbacks can impact their confidence, making it harder to “bounce back” when other challenges arise. Resilience is the ability to recover from setbacks and view challenges as learning opportunities. Building resilience may help your learner thrive despite day-to-day challenges.
Resilience is like a “seesaw,” or a balance between the negative experiences and positive experiences influenced by personal, biological, social, and community factors. However, it’s also a skill that can be taught. Developing a growth mindset, emotional regulation skills, problem-solving skills, flexibility, and strong social connections can help students strengthen both their resilience and executive functioning skills. It’s important that we help learners develop these skills early and provide them with opportunities to overcome manageable challenges. When learners develop EF skills, they also learn ways to become more resilient.
Further Reading
- Ahern, Kiehl, Lou Sole, & Byers (2006) – A Review of Instruments Measuring Resilience
- American Psychological Association (2024) – Resilience
- Boys & Girls Club (2024) – A Growth Mindset Matters: Helping Youth Be Resilient
- Boys & Girls Club (2024) – Youth Right Now
- Cassidy (2016) – The Academic Resilience Scale (ARS-30)
- Center on the Developing Child (2015) – InBrief: The Science of Resilience
- National Library of Medicine (2007) – Social Support and Resilience to Stress
- Smith, Dalen, Wiggins, Tooley, Christopher, & Bernard (2008) – The Brief Resilience Scale
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2024) – Risk and Protective Factors
- US Department of State (2009-2017) – What is Resilience?
- Life Skills Advocate (2023) – Coaching Vs. Therapy? Which One Do I Need?
- Life Skills Advocate (2021) – Executive Functioning 101: Flexibility
- Life Skills Advocate (2020) – Executive Functioning 101: Problem-Solving
- Life Skills Advocate (2021) – Executive Functioning 101: The Basics of Emotional Control
- Life Skills Advocate (2024) – Real-Life Executive Function Coaching
- Life Skills Advocate (2024) – Unlock Potential: Get Your FREE Data-Informed Executive Functioning Assessment