“Resilience depends on supportive, responsive relationships and mastering a set of capabilities that can help us respond and adapt to adversity in healthy ways,” says Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard. “It’s those capacities and relationships that can turn toxic stress into tolerable stress.”

The process through which children and adults acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to:

– recognize and manage their emotions;

– demonstrate caring and concern for others;

– establish positive relationships;

– make responsible decisions; and

– handle challenging situations constructively.