With some words it happens like with the songs of summer: we discover them, they connect to what we experience and we don’t stop listening to them and repeating them over and over again. What initially excited and moved us eventually makes us tired and can fill us up.
Resilience is one of those words that the pandemic has made fashionable, sometimes even perverting its meaning. But for decades, professionals working with children and young people in inequity environments have been talking about it. In fact, resilience is a metaphor for the human condition, borrowed from material physics by the social sciences in the second half of the 20th century to refer to resistance and flexibility in the face of life’s blows.
Beyond the good use or misuse of the word resilience, the reality that word speaks to us is still there, stubborn and stark. Life isn’t always pretty. It’s something that most of us discover sooner or later. But it so happens that some discover it too soon. Child poverty is one of the bitter fruits of inequality in this poorly distributed world. And in Spain, the known dates are embarrassing. That, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), one in three children lives in a situation at risk of poverty or exclusion is a figure we should not get used to.
Against the generational inheritance of poverty
Breaking the perverse cycle of intergenerational poverty transmission requires a dual set of policies: addressing the structural causes of inequality while providing opportunities for children and youth to build a dignified future and breaking out of situations of poverty the people who live . And this is exactly where we start the socio-pedagogical action to develop resilience.
Children are not miniature people or adult projects. You are subject to rights
Thanks to resilience research, we now know that facing adversity and moving forward in spite of (or even thanks to) adversity does not depend on luck, genes, or fate. We can identify the factors that develop it and we know that these, which we call protective factors, can be improved through appropriate social and educational interventions. Also, we know that leisure and sport are privileged scenarios for their development.
What are the ingredients of this “magic potion” that allows us to face life’s difficulties or even use them to get better? And how do educational leisure in general and sport in particular promote these processes?
Three protective factors for resilience
The effect of sport, play or physical activity on self-esteem and social skills is supported by numerous studies. Self-esteem and social skills are two of the most frequently mentioned protective factors, also in studies on resilience. Stefan Vaniestendael, one of the international leaders in this field, adds at least three more.
A group of children play with rackets and balls at the Poble-sec Social Education Center (Barcelona), which offers free tennis lessons to children who do not normally have access to the sport. Pere Tarre Foundation
The first of these is social support. It has to do with human relationships, helping one another, feeling accepted and loved. This is important for overcoming adversity. Sporting activities can be spaces that create friendships, improve neighborhood relationships, or improve a sense of belonging. I’m not only thinking of the children and their sporting activities, but also of the families who are in training, on trips or tournaments. And also in the awareness of an association, a neighborhood, a common project, in all those scenarios where the connections between people end up weaving the protective social network that we speak of when we speak of social support.
It is not surprising that in a recent study on loneliness (another troubling evil of our hyper-connected society) lack of physical or sporting activity appears as one of the main causes of unwanted loneliness among young people.
Child poverty is one of the bitter fruits of inequality in this poorly distributed world
Another resilience factor that sporting experience can help develop is the ability to make sense of what is experienced. Setting goals, sharing projects, defining steps to be followed or justifying effort are processes in sports practice that teach us to answer questions about the meaning of what we do in life and the value of life itself. And that is something central to resilience. It is important, yes, the company of sensible adults who help to discover that the main engine of life is not on the outside (in titles, success or social recognition) but on the inside, in the joy of learning, of improving, on overcoming, on the inside what we call achievement motivation in the social sciences.
And the third protective factor I was referring to is a sense of humor. It’s likely his pivotal role caught some investigators by surprise in the face of adversity. But it shows up systematically in studies on resilience. The sense of humor tells us about the need to accept fragility as part of our humanity and to laugh a little at ourselves. It is a sign of intelligence, of clarity that allows us to discern what is fundamental (few things are) and what is incidental.
What does sport have to feed this protective factor? The joy of partying and, above all, the enormous number of hits, failures and defeats that playing sports often entails. Both (the party and the pain) balance and humanize us and help build a perspective on ourselves and on being human that also protects us from the capitalized losses and defeats that life brings us, especially when that life characterized by inequality of opportunity.
The educational use of sport in childhood and adolescence can have this transformative power
Let the kids have a good time
Certainly not all uses of sport contribute to making the world a better place. However, its educational use in childhood and adolescence can have this transformative power. Physical activity responds to the need to move, play and have fun. That alone (that the children are doing well) more than justifies it. But beyond that, it can be a powerful ally in building resilience and a space to experience ownership of your life. This is related to one of the dimensions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that is most difficult for us to develop: their right to participate, their position as active members of the society in which they live.
Children are not miniature people or adult projects. They are legal subjects. Sport can help them develop the sense of self-government that is inherent in citizens. There is probably something essential about growing with the opportunity to break the self-replicating cycle of poverty. And by the way, it might help us adults to make this fast-moving and unequal world that is leaving us a little more livable.
paco lopez He is a professor at the Faculty of Social Education and Social Work Pere Tarrés-URL.
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