CHILDHOOD STRESS AND RESILIENCE

Stressful events are part of every childhood. Illness, the birth of a sibling, frustration, and parents’ temporary absence are common sources of stress. Other nonroutine stresses are all too likely to occur in a child’s world. Divorce or death of parents, hospitalization, and the day-in, day-out grind of poverty affect many children. Some children survive wars and earthquakes. The increase in the number of homeless families in the United States has brought severe psychological difficulties to children. Violent events like kidnappings and playground sniper attacks make children realize that their world is not always safe and that parents cannot always protect them. This realization is stressful to children in the short run and may affect them in the long run as well.

Children’s fears reflect their awareness of many modern stresses, as seen in the box above.

Children today have new pressures to cope with. Because families move around more than they used to, children are more likely to change schools and friends and less likely to know many adults well. They know more than children of previous generations did about technology, sex, and violence; and when they live in single-parent homes or have to consider parents’ work schedules, they are likely to shoulder adult responsibilities.

The child psychologist David Elkind has called today’s child the “hurried-child.” Like some other thoughtful observers, he is concerned that the pressures of life today are making children grow up too soon and are making their shortened childhood too stressful. Today’s children are pressured to succeed in school, to compete in sports, and to meet parents’ emotional needs. Children are exposed to many adult problems on television and in real life before they have mastered the problems of childhood. Yet children are not small adults. They feel and think like children, and they need these years of childhood for healthy development.

Sometimes a child’s healthy development is thwarted by the very people expected to help it—the parents, who subject their children to physical abuse or psychological maltreatment. Some children, however, known as “resilient” children, are able to overcome enormous life stress.

The effects of stress are unpredictable because people are unpredictable. Children’s reactions to stressful events may depend on such factors as the event itself (children respond differently to a parent’s death and to divorce), the child’s age (preschoolers and adolescents react differently), and the child’s sex (boys are more vulnerable than girls). Yet of two children of the same age and sex who are exposed to the same stressful experience, one may crumble while the other remains whole and healthy. Why is this so?

Resilient children are those who bounce back from circumstances that would blight the emotional development of most children. They are the children of the ghetto who go on to distinguish themselves in the professions. They are the neglected or abused children who go on to form intimate relationships, be good parents to their own children, and lead fulfilling lives. In spite of the bad cards they have been dealt, these children are winners. They are creative, resourceful, independent, and enjoyable to be with. What is special about them?

Several studies have identified “protective factors” that may operate to reduce the effects of such stressors as kidnapping or poor parenting. Several of these factors may also protect children who have been psychologically abused.

Are some children born with stress-proof personalities? Or can children develop resilience? There has been little research on hereditary factors in handling stress or on the effect of differences in temperament, which seems to be partly hereditary. Factors like the following seem to contribute to children’s resilience:

• Personality. Resilient children tend to be adaptable. They are usually positive thinkers, friendly, sensitive to other people, and independent. They feel competent and have high self-esteem. Intelligence, too, may be a factor: good students seem to cope better. These children are often able to diminish the importance of their problems by the way they look at them—as does the child hero of the movie My Life As a Dog, who consoles himself by thinking, “It could always be worse.”
• Family. Resilient children are likely to have good relationships with parents who are emotionally supportive of them and each other, or, failing that, to have a close relationship with at least one parent. If they lack even this, they are likely to be close to at least one other adult who shows interest in them and obviously cares for them, and whom they trust. Resilient abused children are likely to have been abused by only one parent rather than both and to have had a loving, supportive relationship with one parent or a foster parent when growing up.
• Learning experiences. Resilient children are likely to have had experience solving social problems. They have seen parents, older siblings, or others dealing with frustration and making the best of a bad situation. They have faced challenges themselves, worked out solutions, and learned that they can exert some control over their lives.
• Reduced risk. Children who have been exposed to only one of a number of factors strongly related to psychiatric disorder (such as discord between the parents, low social status, overcrowding at home, a disturbed mother, a criminal father, and experience in foster care or an institution) are often able to overcome the stress. But when two or more of these factors are present, children’s risk of developing an emotional disturbance increases fourfold or more. When children are not besieged on all sides, they can often cope with adverse circumstances.
• Compensating experiences. A supportive school environment and successful experiences in sports, in music, or with other children or interested adults can help make up for a dismal home life. In adulthood, a good marriage can compensate for poor relationships earlier in life.

All this research, of course, does not mean that what happens in a child’s life does not matter. In general, children with an unfavorable background have more problems in adjustment than children with a favorable background. What is heartening about these findings is the recognition that childhood experiences do not necessarily determine the out-come of a person’s life, that many people do have the strength to rise above the most difficult circumstances, and that we are constantly rewriting the stories of our lives as long as we live.