RUNNING HEAD: ANALYSIS PAPER I: CHRONIC STRESS, COPING

Analysis Paper I: Chronic Stress, Coping, and Development

Shanirah Sweeper

Liberty University
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ANALYSIS PAPER I: CHRONIC
Introduction

Healthy development throughout childhood and adolescence is pertinent to becoming a

healthy functioning, self-sufficient adult. After the first three years of life, when the quickest

learning and initial skill-building takes place, early childhood development allows for skill-

building to grow in self-sufficiency. With the addition of school in early childhood, the child has

a new environment to learn and explore the necessary skills of human development. In

adolescence, we see changes physically, neurologically, and psychosocially relative to the

skillset already developed in the stages prior. Healthy development in adolescence yields better

executive functioning skills such as decision-making, reasoning, planning for the future, and

organization. During this time, the limbic system—responsible for emotional responses and

pleasure seeking—also experiences changes.

Unfortunately, not every child will experience a uniform, healthy upbringing.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model explains our psychosocial systems and how they apply to us,

beginning with ourselves in the center of this model as the “individual”. The individual

experiences different interactions within their microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem,

respectively. The system structures within each child’s ecological model have the ability to make

or break their development. This paper seeks to understand the effects of chronic stress and

coping impact on child and adolescent development.

Stress and Chronic Stress

Zimmer-gembeck, Van Petegem, and Skinner (2016) define stressors as “environmental

events or chronic conditions that objectively threaten the physical and psychological health or

well-being of individuals of a particular age in a particular society” (p.178). Chronically stressful

environments lead to strain of biological and physiological regulatory systems. Additionally,

system, which elevates the blood pressure and increases inflammation within the body (de Bruin,

Sieh, Zijlstra, & Meijer, 2018). Various factors within a child’s ecological model contribute to

the experience of chronic stress.

The microsystem of the Ecological Model embodies the child’s immediate interactions

with peers, family, school, and any additional community or extracurricular involvement. Most

influential in chronic stress is the family structure and home life. The parent-child relationship

plays an imperative role in child and adolescent development, and outside variables affect the

quality of this relationship. In evident stressful circumstances, such as the adverse effects of

poverty, child and adolescent development is often negatively impacted by this experience as it

compromises the parent-child relationship—though this is not the only experience or

circumstance that would do so.

When parent responsiveness and investment to and in their children is minimal, this

creates a stressor for the child. Using the impact of poverty for this example, we observe that the

outward variable—the one that lies within the child’s exosystem—of poverty negatively impacts

the parent (the child’s microsystem), which negatively impacts the child. Outside of experiencing

a low-income upbringing, the mental health of the parent also contributes to the parent-child

relationship—though there is a direct correlation between poverty and depression. Reising,

Bettis, Dunbar, Watson, Gruhn, Hoskinson, and Compas (2018) note that parental depression

increases the risk for internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children and adolescents.

Within the home and family system, variables such as life events and social

circumstances impact childhood development as discussed; however, children may also

experience chronic stress through circumstances in the school setting and their own interpersonal
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ANALYSIS PAPER I: CHRONIC
relationships. Again, the interactions within the school system are representative of the child’s

microsystem within the Ecological Model. Observe the child who experiences stressful

interactions at school, only to return home to a stressful environment due to social status or other

family circumstances. In a case like this one, the interaction of both the school and home life

(representative of the child’s mesosystem) work together keeping the child under chronic stress.

Coping

Pilyoung, Neuendorf, Bianco, and Evans (2015) note that ineffective coping strategies are

what bridge the gap between chronic stress and negative mental health outcomes. As stated,

Pilyoung and Evans focus their research on the specific effects of poverty and evaluate whether

this experience shapes the coping strategies used. According to their report, coping strategies are

in a form of engagement (healthy, effective) or disengagement (maladaptive). Disengagement

strategies are more common in adolescents experiencing chronic stress, as these factors result in

impaired functioning and development of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible

for decision-making.

Conclusion

The sequence of child and adolescent development is a straight-forward concept; we are

informed of what processes should be taking place at what age. On the contrary, the realistic

outcome of one’s development is variable among each individual depending on their life

circumstances. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model explains the systems within an individual’s

life and helps to examine their interactions, both within one system and across each system.

Chronic stress and coping during adolescence bring to light the interactions of an overarching

political or social system and its negative impact on the home and community. In turn, these

home and community experiences have adverse effects on the individual.

de Bruin, E.I., Sieh, D.S., Zijlstra, B.J.H., & Meijer, A.M. (2018). Chronic childhood
stress:Psychometric properties of the Chronic Stress Questionnaire for children and
adolescents (CSQ-CA) in three independent samples. Child Indicators Research 11,
1389-1406. Retrieved from:
https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/article/10.1007/s12187-017-9478-3#citeas

Pilyoung, K., Neuendorf, C., Bianco, H. & Evans, G.W. (2015). Exposure to childhood poverty
and mental health symptomology in adolescence: A role of coping strategies. Stress and
Health 32(5). Retrieved from:
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/doi/full/10.1002/smi.2646

Reising, M.M., Bettis, A.H., Dunbar, J.P., Watson, K.H., Gruhn, M., Hoskinson, K.R., &
Compas, B.E. (2018). Stress, coping, executive function, and brain activation in
adolescent offspring of depressed and nondepressed mothers. Child Neuropsychology: A
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Zimmer-gembeck, M.J., Van Petegem, S., & Skinner, E.A. (2016). Emotion, controllability and
orientation towards stress as correlates of children’s coping with interpersonal stress.
Motivation and Emotion 40(1), 178-191. DOI: 10.1007/s11031-015-9520-z