I confess I saw the title of this thread and did an internal eye roll. Kids have C’s - it happens.
Then I clicked on it anyway and now I feel guilty. I am so so sorry for your daughter, and for you, too, suffering helplessly with her.
If you had worded the title something like “how to explain dip in grades after horrifically traumatic experience” everyone would have gone “wait, what?” and “you just did!”
Seriously, how could a teen not be affected by this tragedy and show it, it wouldn’t have been healthy. Not necessarily in grades, because I guess some kids might, numbly, power through, and fall apart in other ways.
And I wouldn’t word it that she’s learnt resilience at a cost. She’s shown resilience she didn’t know she had, none of you did, because until then she didn’t need it. Resilience, for a teen, a lot of that is on you, so you got a lot right. This could have been so much worse.
I would think this is exactly the type of thing counsellor’s letters were invented for. And absolutely NOT the kind of thing teens should be forced to write about themselves. If a school wants an “adversity letter”, I’d seriously consider stopping my kid from applying - imagine the range of things kids might feel compelled to write about.