Marion 10 Chapter 9

Guidance of Young Children
Tenth Edition
Chapter 9
Resilience and Stress in
Childhood
Copyright © 2019, 2015, 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives
• Explain how children develop resilience.
• Summarize information on stress in young children—types
and sources and how stress affects young children.
• Explain the stages in responding to and how children cope
with stress.
• Explain strategies that teachers can use to help children
cope effectively with stress.

Resilience in Young Children

Resilience in Young Children
• Ability to recover relatively quickly from misfortune
without being overwhelmed or acting in dysfunctional
ways
• Many children experience stress which can be traumatic
• Those who develop resilience are somewhat protected
from stress

Protective Factors That Foster
Resilience (1 of 2)
• Caring relationships
– Resilient children have been able to connect with at
least one caring and compassionate person who
models confidence and positive action
– Typically an authoritative adult
• High expectations
– Assists children in becoming resilient
– Helps children develop competence, control, and
worth

Protective Factors That Foster
Resilience (2 of 2)
• Opportunities for participation
– Identify interests
– Encourage participation

Types of Stressors

Types of Stressors (1 of 3)
Physical stressors
• Forms of excessive stimulation that injure or can
potentially injure the tissue of some part of the body
• Examples include: excessively loud noises, extremely
harsh lighting, decreased or lack of oxygen, extreme heat
or cold, injuries, infections, and drugs
• Perceived as painful or unpleasant

Psychological stressors
• Forms of excessive stimulation with the potential to
threaten a child’s sense of well-being or to keep a child
from developing a sense of well-being
• Perceived stressors vary and differ depending on the child
• Most likely to occur when a child cannot understand,
evaluate, or cope effectively with some internal or external
event
• May occur when something keeps them from fulfilling
fundamental needs

• Combination of physical and psychological stressors
• May experience a blending of physical and psychological
stressors following an event

Acute and Chronic Stress

Acute and Chronic Stress
• Acute Stress
– Most common form of stress
– Intense stress that occurs suddenly
– Can be physical, psychological, or a combination of
the two
– Tends to subside as abruptly as it started
• Chronic Stress
– Persistent stress that remains for long periods or
forever
– Effects accumulate and cause problems even for well
adjusted children

Sources of Stress

Sources of Stress
• Internal sources of stress
– Come from within a child
– May include hunger pangs, shyness, headaches
– May stem from thoughts or emotions
• External sources of stress
– In a child’s family
– In school

How Stress Affects Children

How Stress Affects Children
• Physical effects of stress
– Stress, white blood cells, and resistance to infections
– Stress affects a child’s brain
▪ Excessive amounts of stress hormones which can
kill brain cells and reduce the number of
connections among brain cells
• Behavioral and psychological effects
– An issue to ponder about behavioral indicators of
stress
▪ May lead to oppositional defiant disorder
▪ One of the treatments involves training parents

Stages in Responding to Stress
• Alarm, Appraisal, Search for a Coping Strategy

Alarm
• Child stops and orients toward or focuses on the potential
stressful event

Appraisal
• Involves reviewing what this event meant in the past
• Developmental level in terms of memory and perception:
Does not occur for infants and young children
• Child’s experience with adults who have modeled how to
look at and evaluate events
• Self-esteem: Affects how stress-inducing events are
viewed and dealt with

Searching for a Coping Strategy
• First possibility: a child is familiar with an event, has
actively dealt with it in the past, and used a good coping
strategy
• Second possibility: a child is familiar with an event, has
actively dealt with it in the past, but used an ineffective
coping strategy
• Third possibility: a child is familiar with the stressor but
has not dealt with it first hand
• Fourth possibility: a child is totally unfamiliar with a
stressor

Coping Effectively with Stress

Coping Effectively with Stress (1 of 2)
What is coping?
• Refers to looking for something inside or outside oneself
to come to terms with stressors
Different ways of coping with stress
• Some people cope by getting information about the
stressor
• Others cope by taking direct action
• Some people by restraining movements or actions
• Still others cope with stress by denying or avoiding the
problem

Coping Effectively with Stress (2 of 2)
Can young children cope effectively with stress?
• No, because to cope well one must
– able to think about more than one thing at a time
– be able to invent alternative ways of solving a
problem
– be able to manage unpleasant emotions
– understand the effect of your reactions
– be able to think purposefully
• Young children tend to lack these abilities

General Guidelines for Helping Children
Cope with Stress

General Guidelines for Helping Children
Cope with Stress
• Model good stress management
• Manage your classroom to be a low-stress environment
• Acknowledge and learn about the variety of stressors in
children’s lives
• Act as a buffer between a child and a stressor
• Teach children how to relax and to calm themselves
• Learn and teach good coping skills
• Work with families

Suggestions for Helping Children Who
Face the Stress of Moving

Suggestions for Helping Children Who
Face the Stress of Moving
• Moving interrupts friendships and children lose social
support
• Moving elicits unpleasant emotions
• Moving interrupts the separation process
• Moving requires children to adjust to a new curriculum in
school and different teacher expectations
• Moving interrupts school and social services

Protect Children Who are Experiencing
Stress (Act as a ‘Buffer’) (1 of 2)
• When a child moves away from your school or
classroom
Talk with the child about moving away and help him
understand about his new school, listen carefully and
encourage the child to talk about his feelings, help him
say goodbye in a positive way, make sure accurate
records are transferred quickly, work with child’s parents

Protect Children Who are Experiencing
Stress (Act as a ‘Buffer’) (2 of 2)
• When a child moves to your school or classroom
Obtain the child’s file, make a home visit if able;
familiarize the child and family with the school, your
schedule, and classroom routines; learn about the child’s
interests, request children to act as guides, read a book
with the class, use name tags, work with parents

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Marion 10 Chapter 9

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