Child Resilience Essay Outline
Jasmine Wilson
COMM61 Section 102
Sara Beck
October 25th, 2014
Introduction: Attention getter: Everyday, thousands experience moderate to severe traumatic life events and how an individual copes with it is known as resiliency.
Thesis:
Children have the ability to be resilient on their own, however it is brought out by life experiences where coping is necessary such as social vulnerability, severe maltreatment, and aversive events.
Point 1: Social Vulnerability
• Lack of psychological needs in childhood can cause increase risk levels of attaining social vulnerability (Richaud as cited in Lostaló & Di Nella, 2004).
• Social vulnerability refers to emotional, material and educational needs
…show more content…
Point 3- Aversive Events
• Everyone will have at least one moment in life where a violent or traumatic experience occurs (Bonanno as cited in Ozer, Best, Lipsey & Weiss, 2008).
• Death of a loved one to some may be life altering while others will mourn and move on in a couple of months (Bonanno, 2008).
• Individuals tend to remember certain events due to intensity and depending on how resilient they are, some learn to adapt to stressors.
• Bereavement theorists question an individual who shows minimal signs of grief as a result of resiliency and argue that anyone who has dealt with trauma receive some form of treatment (Bonanno as cited in Mitchell, 2008).
• As a result of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, 78.2% of individuals had no more than three post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms due to resilience (Bonanno as cited in Hanson et al., 2008).
• Protective factors act as a developmental ladder to children dealing with traumatic losses whether in the family or environment, it is important to provide them with appropriate grieving strategies for resilience to manifest (Bonanno,
…show more content…
References
Afifi, T. O., & MacMillan, H. L. (2011). Resilience following child maltreatment: A review of protective factors. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56(5), 266-272. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rch&AN=62078149&site=ehost-live
Bonanno, A. G. (2008). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events?. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, S(1), 101-113. doi: 10.1037/1942-9681.S.1.101
Dumont, M., & Provost, A. M. (1999). Resilience in adolescents: protective role of social support, coping strategies, self-esteem, and social activities on experience of stress and depression. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 28(3), 343-363. doi: 10.1023/A:1021637011732
Mrazek, J. P., & Mrazek, A. D. (1987). Resilience in child maltreatment victims: A conceptual exploration. Child abuse and neglect 11(3), 357-366. doi: 10.1016/0145-2134(87)90009-3
Richaud, C. M., (2013). Contributions to the study and promotion of resilience in socially vulnerable children. American Psychologist, 68(8), 751-758.
The aspects of the article that are the most significant are the protective factors within the individual, the family, and the community. It addresses the characteristics of resilient children in school and within the family how each role may varies.
According to Osgood (2014), in order for youth to become resilient they need help building a support system to fall back on, must learn the problem solving skills necessary to live on their
Throughout the world, some children suffer the trauma of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, leaving many overwhelmed by complex traumatic distress and at risk of psychopathology as adults (McCormack & Thomson, 2017). As many as 68% of children face emotional, physical, and/or sexual traumatic events in childhood (Cavanaugh, 2016). Contingent on the significant level of stress of the traumatic event, some will receive a psychiatric diagnosis in adulthood (McCormack & Thomson, 2017). Traumatic events are a threat or involve harm (McLaughlin & Lamber, 2017). Complex trauma during childhood may result from multiple, chronic, and prolonged developmentally adverse traumatic events, often as a result of interpersonal events in the child’s
Every day children experience stressful situations such as bullying, thoughts of suicide, abuse and neglect, poverty, LGBTQ biases, homelessness, and various levels of mental health conditions. For many, this is coupled with challenges at home like domestic violence, parental drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness and poverty. Some children are resilient and tend to handle “life’s lemons” pretty well. Conversely, for a large number, the stress has caused them to suffer socially, mentally, behaviorally and academically. As a result, many children have low self-esteem, poor family relationships and, many turn to drugs and alcohol or become involved with criminal
This might cause changes in behavior or distress will occur. As a professional social worker I must acknowledge that there is no cure for trauma. However, there are selections of coping mechanism and theoretical approaches that if used properly can help those living with trauma begin to enhance the quality of their life through encouragement and empowerment. From strengths perspective an appropriate approach would be to implement the family resilience framework during practice to effectively treat children and
Bellis and Zisk (2014).This article is about how childhood trauma effects psychosocial, medical, and public policy. When trauma happens in a child's developmental stage, it creates overwhelming stress. Chronic intrapersonal violence is extremely common in children all over the world. The article says that childhood traumas is a fairly new study, so there is not as much information about traumas as adolescents versus adults. The authors goals is to show the long and short term effect on children after these traumatic experiences.
If trauma occurs, especially in the early years of childhood, the disturbance could limit the child’s “developmental possibilities” in multiple facets of life that incorporates personal, familial, cultural, and ecological realms (Paris, 2012, p. 84). Further, this could lead to future re-victimization, and the misdiagnosis and
What factors and procedures determine socio-psychological resiliency in adult survivors of childhood abuse and how can resiliency be fostered based on these factors?
Each year in the United States several million children experience some extreme traumatic event. Some of these events include natural disasters, death of a loved one, vehicle accidents, physical and/or sexual abuse and witnessing domestic violence. Children are increasingly exposed to violence in society. Many of these children may develop some form of psychological problems that can significantly impair their emotional, academic, and social functioning. Research has noted that many of these children will become fearful of their environment and develop expectations that their future will be unhappy. These children are in need of interventions to help them develop productive modes of coping. Over the years there have
Vulnerability and resilience among children continues to be a popular topic in research of developmental psychology. The two definitions are closely tied together as they are considered both sides to the spectrum. Schaffer (2006) defines vulnerability and resilience “as the susceptibility to develop malfunctioning following exposure to stressful life events, as opposed to the capacity to maintain competent functioning stress”. If stressful life events are the trigger here, why is it that some children are far more vulnerable, yet others are more resilient? The three studies discussed in this paper will attempt to explain why these differences occur and what can we do to enhance protective factors.
The article presents the notion that children, who undergo severe life stress, will perform below par in academics, develop mood/emotional disorders and reap the effects in their social life. Past researchers such as, Shonkoff, Garner, and Wood believed that explicating how early life stresses affect neural, cognitive, and other functioning will assist in discovering ways to prevent or intervene before it gets worse (Romens 303). It was also noted that a key factor in children that experience this type of abuse is the parenting style. Children that are severely abused lack the support and care system that is given by supportive and delicate parenting (Romens 303). Slavich and Cole indicated that experiences in the environment play a role
Adults claim that children are resilient. I can tell you that it is not true.
At the time this paper was written, previous research had indicated that children under high-stress may be protected by supportive family environment and a good child-family relationship (Wyman et al., 1992). To expand on this body of research, this cross-sectional study (Wyman et al., 1992) focuses on the child’s view of the caretaking environment and investigates whether the environments that children live in are a factor in protecting against stress effects. In addition, Wyman et al. (1992) also attempt to expand the research definition of resilience attributes beyond only child-family variables by identifying other key factors contributing to resilience such as self-esteem and hope for the future.
“Being able to selectively disengage from the home and engage with those outside, and then to reengage. “Being internally oriented and having an internal locus of control. “The absence of serious illness during adolescence.” The capacity of an individual to cope during difficulty is central to their resilience. Pearlin and Schooler (1982, p. 109) define coping as “the thing that people do to avoid being harmed by lifestrain.” These authors conducted 2300 interviews in the urbanized Chicago area and through content analysis of these interviews identified three main types of coping that serve distinct functions, viz: “Responses that change the situation out of which strainful experience arises” (Pearlin & Schooler, 1982, p. 115). Interestingly, their research found that this type of coping was not widely used. Several reasons are offered to explain this. Page 6 Resilience Theory: A Literature Review
Without a doubt having taken this course has opened my eyes to the subject of trauma and its effects in ways that I would never have conceived in my limited exposure to this area of study. I can say, that it is the study of trauma and its many faceted dimensions that have perked up my ears at times such as when the mention of the term on the T.V. brings me to tune in to hear what the latest event or discussion surrounding a specific take on violence and its trauma related after probing. My reflection on my emotional reactions to certain KB’s is that at the heart of the topic of trauma are various nuisances. I am looking at my journey as I go through the course, and I am personally affected by resilience as a factor of people’s lives. I was struck by this because the idea was not one which comes to my attention when thinking of trauma. What comes to mind is what takes place at the time of a traumatic event and the recovery aspect of it. The varied aspects of family history and resilience never entered the conversation about trauma which I carried on with myself. But after looking at the need for victims of traumatic events such as a mass shooting to get better after a traumatic event, it is reiterated over and over by research of well documented studies as to how a person’s recovery progresses will depend on what resilience mechanisms have been laid down in their childhood for a given individual.