Background of the study

Children and adolescents experience rapid changes due to development and growth processes, thereby
necessitating adaptation and flexibility. In addition, young people also often face environmental crises or
traumas, human-made catastrophes, or individual (chronic illness) or family (parent divorce, death of a
loved one) crises. In the past, to facilitate young people’s adaptation to change, major aims of parents,
teachers, and therapists focused on protecting children and adolescents from harm and helping them
grow up in a secure environment. Over time, modern life and the influence of the positive psychology
orientation have led to a shift in those aims, which now focus more on helping young people feel happy,
flourish, and use their own strengths. A key element in making this process of adaptation to change
successful is resilience. This chapter deals with the effects of changes, crises, and traumas on children
and adolescents, while focusing on the importance of resilience at the individual, family, and
environmental levels. This approach directs adaptation to change efforts towards the present rather
than towards the past, thereby meeting the important need of treating children and adolescents who
have experienced crisis and trauma by imparting them with skills for better coping today in their major
natural environments.

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The Effects of Changes, Crises, and Traumas on Children and Adolescents

Ensuring the wellbeing of children and adolescents comprises a major goal for parents, educators, and
mental health professionals. During childhood and adolescence, a wide range of cultural and
environmental transformations occur as a result of young people’s rapid physiological growth,
psychosocial development, and cognitive changes—encompassing increased family responsibilities,
rising academic and social demands, separation and individuation from the family unit, and exploration
of stressful new experiences with peers and novel adult activities (Steinberg, 2007). Taken together,
these developments reinforce the emerging understanding of childhood and adolescence as a critical or
sensitive period for the individual’s reorganization of regulatory systems, which is fraught with both
opportunities and risks (Steinberg, 2013).

The rapid pace of these changes and fluctuations, alongside young people’s dependence on adults,
renders them vulnerable and sensitive to environmental circumstances that may adversely affect their
physical or emotional development (Levendosky, Leahy, Bogat, Davidson, & von Eye, 2006). This is
especially manifested when, in addition to experiencing developmental changes, children and
adolescence are exposed to traumatic experiences within the family (such as neglect, abuse, illness,
divorce, death) or to environmental and community stressors and disasters (such as war, terrorist
attack, or earthquake). Trauma symptoms have been reported in children as young as one year old
(Bogat, DeJonghe, Levendosky, Davidson, & von Eye, 2006).

Cicchetti (2006, 2013) claimed that children’s and adolescents’ limited life experiences—together with
their vulnerability and sensitivity—preclude them from dealing effectively with stress, threats, and
crises, which can affect their physical development as well as their personality and emotional
development and may predispose them to behavioural, emotional, or cognitive disorders. Other
researchers have noted that stressful life events may also impair family relationships, increase behaviour
problems, and decrease social competence (Davies, Winter, & Cicchetti, 2006; Levendosky et al., 2006).

There is no doubt that change, crisis, and trauma render tremendous influence on young people’s
psychosocial development; however, debates remain about how such experiences impact them. While
some traumatic experiences seem to increase the mental health problems of children and adolescents,
who demonstrate symptoms ranging from mild distress to severe dysfunction, it appears that other
traumatic experiences, paradoxically, seem to affect them positively (Garbarino, 2002).

Two main trends have characterized research studying children’s and adolescents’ behaviour disorders
under adverse conditions. The environmental approach conceptualizes changes and stress as the most
important components influencing children’s disorders (Levendosky et al., 2006). According to this
approach, change (of any kind) acts as a stimulus eliciting stress and anxiety, dependence, and
regressive symptoms. It can jeopardize future growth and development, lead to disabling emotional
disorders, and leave permanent psychological scars, which are then followed by behavioural and
emotional changes and might disrupt the development of basic competencies, threatening the child’s
ability to process and manage emotions effectively (Martinez-Torteya, Bogat, von Eye & Levendosky,
2009). The new or exacerbated symptoms might disappear after a short period of time, or they may
develop further into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Garbarino, 2002). For years, research
coinciding with the environmental approach has concentrated on the negative consequences of
adversity, conceptualized primarily in terms of risks for psychopathology, dysfunction, breakdown, and
other adverse impacts on individuals and families (Masten, 2018).

The second group of studies, in line with a resilience approach, has focused on normal development,
asserting that children and adolescents generally respond ‘normally’ even to severe crises. These studies
suggest that although children may evidence an increase in their frequency of behaviour problems, they
often do not develop PTSD after exposure to trauma or stress, and after a time they return to their usual
patterns of behaviour, relating to the event as a challenge (Ronen, Rahav, & Rosenbaum, 2003).
Accordingly, while some individuals or families appear to be more vulnerable to adversity, there are
others who seem to be better protected or to recover better after exposure to objectively similar
traumas or family crises. Sometimes these ‘buffering’ effects may reflect children’s individual
functioning at the positive end of a continuum (such as strong levels of emotional regulation or
problem‐solving) along indices previously shown to exacerbate the risks posed by adversities such as
poverty or family violence. In other cases, these young people may have access to ‘buffering’
environmental influences (like a supportive friend or mentor) that help protect them from the
vulnerabilities typically studied in earlier models of stress and coping. According to this approach,
resilience is the component that determines the difference between those individuals or families who
continue on successfully and those who do not (Angelkovski, 2016).

Positive adjustment in general, and in high‐risk samples in particular, demonstrates the influences of
personal traits, coping behaviour patterns, and specifically the ability to adapt to change. During recent
decades, scholars have shifted their focus from studying trauma and risk to studying personal and
environmental strengths and resources in the context of risk or adversity—including capabilities,
processes, or outcomes denoted by desirable adaptation (Masten, 2007, 2018). The present chapter
upholds the view that stress is a challenge, which requires that children and adolescents be resourceful,
cope, and adapt to the changing environment and their changing selves.

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Steinberg, L. (2007). Adolescence (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Martinez-Torteya, C., Bogat, G. A., von Eye, A., & Levendosky, A. A. (2009). Resilience among children
exposed to domestic violence: The role of risk and protective factors. Child Development, 80, 562–577.
Masten, A. S. (2018). Resilience theory and research on children and families: Past, present, and
promise. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 10(1), 12–31.

Ronen, T., Rahav, G., & Rosenbaum, M. (2003). Children’s reactions to war situation as a function of age
and sex. Anxiety Stress and Coping, 16, 59–69
Angelkovski, R. (2016). Education matters. Journal of Student Engagement, 6 (1), 39–45