Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence.

Abstract

In this article, research on how children and adolescents cope with stress and coping's role in reducing the adverse psychological states associated with stress is reviewed. Child and adolescent coping is reflected in seven different lines of research—infa nts' responses to maternal separation, social support, interpersonal cognitive problem-solving, coping in achievement contexts, Type A behavior pattern in children, repression-sensitization, and resilience to stress. A variety of different coping resources, styles, and specific strategies are important in successfully adapting to stress, including efforts that focus directly on the problem, as well as attempts to deal with adverse emotions associated with stress. Directions for future research are identified, emphasizing the need for more systematic comparisons of coping across different types of stress and over time in response to a single stressful episode. A central feature of human development involves coping with psychosocial stress. Beginning in infancy, individuals are confronted with a stream of potentially threatening and challenging situations that require action and adaptation. The modest to moderate correlations typically found between stressful life events and disorder during childhood and adolescence suggest that individual difference factors related to coping may moderate the stress-disorder relation (see Compas, in press, for a review). The resources available to cope with stress and the manner in which individuals actually cope may be important factors influencing patterns of positive growth and development as opposed to the onset of a host of psychological and somatic problems. Although the study of coping with stress during adulthood has been characterized by increasing convergence in conceptualization and measurement (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Menaghan, 1983; Moos & Billings, 1982), this is not true for coping during childhood and adolescence. Instead, coping in younger age groups has been represented by different definitions and methods of measurement, as well as several divergent lines of research. The purpose of this review is to integrate these somewhat disparate areas of research and to identify future directions for study. First, various definitions and conceptualizations of coping are discussed. Second, empirical studies of coping during childhood and adolescence are reviewed. Finally, conclusions drawn from this research, the major issues facing the field, and directions for future research are outlined.