5 Ways to Build Resilience in Your Preschooler

If you have heard that the rules around mobile phones and electronic devices in early childhood settings have changed, you are right. If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, these changes are already in effect.

Here is a plain-English breakdown of what changed, why it happened, and what it means for your family.

Why Did the Laws Change?

The changes were introduced as a child safety measure. In 2025, Australia’s Education Ministers agreed to amend the Education and Care Services National Law to address concerns about the potential for personal devices to be used to capture, store, or transmit images of children in care without authorisation.

The intent is straightforward: children in early learning settings deserve an environment where their privacy and safety are actively protected.

What Changed Nationally

From 27 February 2026, amendments to the national Education and Care Services National Law took effect across Australia. Under these changes, educators and staff who work directly with children are restricted from using personal electronic devices in care settings.

Before this, from 1 September 2025, all early childhood education and care services nationwide were required to have written policies in place addressing the use of digital devices.

What Changed in NSW

NSW moved ahead of the national timeline. The Education and Care Services (Supply, Authorisation and Use of Devices) Order 2025 took effect on 6 November 2025, applying across NSW’s 6,000 or more early learning services, including long day care centres, preschools, and family day care.

Under this order, educators and staff must use service-issued or service-authorised devices rather than their own personal devices when working directly with children.

What Counts as a Personal Device?

The definition is broad. A personal device is any device owned by an individual (not the approved provider) that is capable of capturing, storing, or transmitting an image. This includes:

Mobile phones
Smartwatches
Cameras and tablets
iPads and laptops
Hard drives, USB drives, and memory cards
Wearables such as camera glasses

Who Does the Ban Apply To?

The restrictions apply to anyone working directly with children at a service, including permanent and casual educators, students on placement, volunteers, contractors, and allied health professionals delivering programs on-site.

Parents, carers, and other visitors are not covered by the ban. In NSW, parents and carers remain free to use their personal devices during drop-off, pick-up, centre visits, and events involving their own children. There are also authorised exceptions for essential purposes, including emergencies and health or disability support needs.

What About Screen Time for Children?

These new laws specifically address staff device use, not children’s screen time. Screen time limits for young children are not mandated within childcare regulation at a national level.

The relevant guidance comes from the federal Department of Health and Aged Care’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which recommend no screen time for children under 2 years, and no more than 1 hour per day for children aged 2 to 5 years. These are health guidelines, not regulatory requirements.

What This Means for Your Family

If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, their service is already required to operate under these rules. Any educator or staff member working directly with your child should not be using a personal device to take photos or videos. Only service-authorised devices should be used for that purpose.

If you have questions about how your centre handles digital devices or image capture, you are well within your rights to ask. Most services will have a written policy in place that covers exactly this.

At Clovel, the safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is at the heart of everything we do. If you would like to know more about how we support your child across our centres, we would love to have that conversation with you.

Resilience is one of the most under-appreciated yet most important qualities a child can develop. Like empathy and social skills, resilience is a trait that will benefit your child during their educational career and throughout their adult life.

But how does one go about raising a resilient child?

The secret lies in teaching children how to cope with and learn from adversity. Here are 5 tips that can help.

1. Resilience is Rooted in Relationships

Healthy relationships with the people around them are the foundation for building resilience. This means creating strong bonds, not just with parents and siblings, but also with extended family and caregivers.

Whoever coined the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” was spot on when it comes to resilience. By surrounding your child with a supportive village of family and friends, you instill in them an acceptance of their own value and worth. This, in turn, helps your child feel secure and confident, preparing a fertile soil from which resilience may grow.

2. Resist the Urge to Problem Solve

Yes, preschoolers will undoubtedly require help from parents and caregivers…but don’t be too quick to step in and save the day.

Although it can be hard to watch a child struggle, allowing them to work the problem through to a healthy conclusion is vital to building resilience. You may need to ask leading questions in order to help them arrive at a solution. For example, dealing with a classmate who doesn’t want to be friends can be difficult. You can help your child work through the problem by asking them leading questions like…

What makes you think Calvin doesn’t like you? You may get answers like Calvin calls the child names or refuses to let the child join in imaginative play.

What can you do the next time Calvin is being mean/grouchy? The child could give Calvin space or find someone else to play with.

In this situation, it’s important to lead your child to the realisation that not everyone is going to like them…and that’s okay.

3. Encourage Them to Help Others

Encouraging your child to help others builds confidence in their own ability to make a difference in their community. Find an age-appropriate way for your child to volunteer—collecting canned goods from your pantry to donate to the local food bank, delivering flowers to a nursing home, or donating toys they no longer play with to a local shelter are all age-appropriate options.

4. Instill in Them a Growth Mindset

Developing a growth mindset requires a seismic shift in the way we define success and failure. When something in a child’s life goes wrong—perhaps they perform poorly on a test, lose a race, or have trouble completing an assignment—encourage them to see this as a growth opportunity rather than a failure.

For example, if your child scores poorly on a test, encourage them to get curious and ask questions…

Why did this happen?

What can I do differently?

What can I learn from this experience so my next attempt will bring me closer to success?

In doing so, we remove the finality from failures and reframe them as stepping stones that bring a child one step closer to success.

5. Help Them Manage Emotions

Preschool is a time when children must manage a lot of big feelings, and some of them may be unfamiliar to your child.

Ask your child to think of different emotions—happiness, anger, fear, surprise, confusion, sadness, etc.—and act them out together. Then read a book about big feelings (we love The Color Monster: A Story About Emotions by Anna Llenas). Afterward, remind your child that big feelings are okay to have and that they don’t last forever.

Finally, teach them techniques to work through big feelings like “Birthday Cake in Candles”. When your child is experiencing a big feeling, ask them to close their eyes and imagine there is a cake topped with candles in front of them. Ask them to take a big breath in through their nose and smell the delicious cake, then release the breath through their mouths as if they are blowing out all the candles on the cake. Your child can repeat this technique as needed to reduce stress until big feelings become more manageable.

And so…

Instilling resilience in your child is a gift that will benefit your child throughout their lives. Here’s to raising resilient children who will one become resilient adults!

Lyn Connolly

Founder and Company Director

Lyn Connolly is the Founder and Company Director of Clovel Childcare & Early Learning Centres, a family‑owned group of eight centres across Western Sydney established from her first service at Merrylands. Active in early childhood education since 1977, she also serves as President of the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW, representing providers in state and federal consultations, media, and public hearings.

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