Caregiving and Developmental Factors Differentiating Young At-Risk Urban Children Showing Resilient versus Stress-Affected Outcomes: A Replication and Extension

• Published in: Child development 1999-05, Vol.70 (3), p.645-659
• Main Authors: Wyman, Peter A., Cowen, Emory L., Work, William C., Hoyt-Meyers, Lynne, Magnus, Keith B., Fagen, Douglas B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adult; At risk; At Risk Persons; At risk youth; Biological and medical sciences; Caregivers; Child; Child care; Child Development; Child Rearing; Childhood; Children; Developmental psychology; Factors; Family Health; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infancy; Life Change Events; Male; Parent Background; Parent Child Relationship; Parenting; Parenting Skills; Parents; Parents - psychology; Personality and Social Development; Predictor Variables; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Research Replication; Resilience; Resilience (Personality); Retrospective Studies; School age children; Social Adjustment; Socioeconomic Factors; Statistics as Topic; Stress; Stress Variables; Stress, Psychological - etiology; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Theories; Urban Health; Youths at risk
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00047

This study tested hypotheses from an organizational-developmental model for childhood resilience. In this model resilience reflects a child's mastery of age-salient objectives, in the face of substantial adversity, by drawing on internal and external resources that enhance processes of adaptation specific to each developmental stage. Interviews were conducted with parents of 122 7- to 9-year-old urban children exposed to multiple risk factors, 69 classified as resilient and 53 as maladjusted. Consistent with predictions generated by the model: (1) characteristics of a child's caregiving system and early development differentiated children with resilient and stress-affected adaptations; and (2) variables reflecting emotionally responsive, competent parenting were direct, proximal predictors of resilient status and mediators of other caregiver resources such as education, mental health, and relational history. Identified predictors of resilient status, including competent parenting and caregiver psychosocial resources, largely replicated findings from a prior study with sociodemographically comparable 9- to 12-year-old children.