Week 7 Post 1

While reading chapter 13, the section about resilience and stress really intrigued me. It is explained that some children seem unscathed by early experiences which means that they are resilient. Resilience is the capacity to adapt well to significant adversity and to overcome serious stress. Since resilience is dynamic, a person may be resilient at some periods but not others. Also, resilience is a positive adaptation to stress. Research has shown that accumulated stresses over time are more devastating than an isolated major stress. Enduring repeated stresses makes resilience difficult for children. Accumulated stresses has been known to increase the rate of pathology and decrease achievement more than any single problem. Coping measures can reduce the impact of repeated stress. One important factor the child's interpretation of the situation. This is because the way a child interprets a family situation determines how the situation affects him for her. In general, children who do not take these experiences personally are more resilient. Studies show that there is a direct correlation between children's psychic and academic problems and how vulnerable or at fault they felt as a result of the conflict. The severity of the conflict had a smaller impact. I found this section to be very interesting because although I have learned about stress before, I have never learned about resilience. I did not know that repeated stresses, even when minor, have a greater impact on children than singular stressful situations.