Stress, Coping, and Development in Children is a work of signal importance to psychologists and to every mental health professional involved with infants and children.

In spite of the increase in stress-coping research, little is known about how stress is actually perceived by children in the family setting. This is due in part to the real difficulties involved in collecting data on children's subjective experiences. In addition, what we currently know about children's stress and coping has traditionally derived from adult reporters, rather than from the children themselves. Filling a gap in the literature, this volume explores theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of children and families in general, and to stress-coping phenomena from the child's perspective in particular. The book challenges traditional deference to adult assessment of stress and coping among children by drawing data from both parents and children, revealing significant contrasts between the two. Through open-ended, qualitative measures of children's diaries and drawings, the book offers a glimpse into the inner world of the child and gives scholarly expression to the fact that children can, and readily will, articulate needs and perceptions if given an appropriate vehicle. The book's well-documented chapters discuss traditional approaches to stress and coping, implications for current child and family study, specific needs related to the study of children within the family, and implications for theory and methods. Taxonomies of children's stressors, coping responses, and coping resources are drawn from the data and examined in detail. The book concludes with suggestions for future research and clinical practice. Providing fascinating insight into children's actual experience of stress and coping, this volume lays the groundwork for ongoing research, scholarship, and therapeutic practice. Academicians, practitioners, and graduate students in family studies, child development, psychology, and nursing will find this book invaluable in shedding light on the often overlooked culture of children.

Concern with stress and coping has a long history in biomedical, psychological and sociological research. The inadequacy of simplistic models linking stressful life events and adverse physical and psychological outcomes was pointed out in the early 1980s in a series of seminal papers and books. The issues and theoretical models discussed in this work shaped much of the subsequent research on this topic and are reflected in the papers in this volume. The shift has been away from identifying associations between risks and outcomes to a focus on factors and processes that contribute to diversity in response to risks. Based on the Family Research Consortium's fifth summer institute, this volume focuses on stress and adaptability in families and family members. The papers explore not only how a variety of stresses influence family functioning but also how family process moderates and mediates the contribution of individual and environmental risk and protective factors to personal adjustment. They reveal the complexity of current theoretical models, research strategies and analytic approaches to the study of risk, resiliency and vulnerability along with the central role risk, family process and adaptability play in both normal development and childhood psychopathology.

This book traces the development of coping from birth to emerging adulthood by building a conceptual and empirical bridge between coping and the development of regulation and resilience. It offers a comprehensive overview of the challenges facing the developmental study of coping, including the history of the concept, critiques of current coping theories and research, and reviews of age differences and changes in coping during childhood and adolescence. It integrates multiple strands of cutting-edge theory and research, including work on the development of stress neurophysiology, attachment, emotion regulation, and executive functions. In addition, chapters track how coping develops, starting from birth and following its progress across multiple qualitative shifts during childhood and adolescence. The book identifies factors that shape the development of coping, focusing on the effects of underlying neurobiological changes, social relationships, and stressful experiences. Qualitative shifts are emphasized and explanatory factors highlight multiple entry points for the diagnosis of problems and implementation of remedial and preventive interventions. Topics featured in this text include: Developmental conceptualizations of coping, such as action regulation under stress. Neurophysiological developments that underlie age-related shifts in coping. How coping is shaped by early adversity, temperament, and attachment. How parenting and family factors affect the development of coping. The role of coping in the development of psychopathology and resilience. The Development of Coping is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and related professionals in developmental, clinical child, and school psychology, public health, counseling, personality and social psychology, and neurophysiological psychology as well as prevention and intervention science.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is the second volume based on the annual University of Miami Symposia on Stress and Coping. The present volume is focused on some representative stresses and coping mechanisms that occur during different stages of development including infancy, childhood, and adulthood. Accordingly, the volume is divided into three sections for those three stages.