Resilience in preschool children - the perspectives of teachers, parents and children

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore how parents, teachers and children in early years‟ education understand the concept of resilience. The paper analyses the understanding of the concept of resilience in a Croatian kindergarten using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative research consists of a thematic analysis of data collected through 3 focus groups with 10 parents, 9 teachers and 11 children respectively. The quantitative research includes an analysis of data collected through the Scale of Socio-emotional Wellbeing and Resilience in Preschool Children which teachers and parents completed to assess the resilience of 116 children from a public kindergarten in a city of northern Croatia. The qualitative data indicates that parents and teachers have a different understanding of the resilience concept, while the quantitative data shows that parents, in comparison with teachers, assess all aspects of children‟s resilience more positively.