Children and Resilience
In
KATHLEEN KOSTELNY
Children who are resilient exhibit emotional
and social well-being during and after signifi-
cant stresses and adversity, even though
these experiences have the potential to
disrupt their functioning and healthy devel-
opment (Masten, 2001). Resilience does not
imply that children are unaffected by adver-
sity, but rather that they have coped effec-
tively with their experiences and are
functioning in ways that are appropriate in
the context of their family, community, and
culture. Resilience is a dynamic process that
changes over time depending on the balance
of risk and protective factors in a child’s
environment. Resilience arises from a
mixture of personal and environmental
factors. When risk factors outweigh protec-
tive factors, children are more likely to have
negative developmental outcomes. But sup-
ports in the child’s environment can offset
risks, and when protective factors outweigh
risk factors, children are more likely to expe-
rience well-being and resilience. (See chil-
dren, peace and aggression in.)
Early research on childhood resilience
was conducted in industrialized countries,
including the United States, Great Britain,
and Australia, and examined adverse circum-
stances and risks such as parental substance
abuse, poverty, maternal mental illness,
divorce, death of a parent or sibling, domes-
tic violence, and child abuse and neglect
during different historical periods and with
various socioeconomic and ethnic groups
(Werner & Smith, 2001). More recent
research on children who are resilient has
also investigated children who have experi-
enced political conflict in contexts such as
Sierra Leone, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Occupied
The Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, First Edition. Edited by Daniel J. Christie.
© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Palestinian Territories, and Afghanistan.
such contexts children encounter multiple
risks such as witnessing and experiencing
violence, lack of access to food, shelter, and
healthcare, loss of a family member, dis-
placement from their homes, separation
from their parents, destruction of their
schools, and discrimination by opposing
groups. Moreover, children who live in com-
munities with chronic community violence,
including children living in areas with
rampant gang violence in the United States,
are also likely to experience multiple risks
including poverty, overcrowded and inade-
quate living conditions, family violence, and
child maltreatment. As these risks accumu-
late in children’s lives, negative outcomes
can increase exponentially.
However, a range of protective factors
can mitigate negative outcomes and promote
resilience in children. Children who are
resilient possess certain biological and per-
sonality characteristics and have support
from their families, peers, and community
members and institutions. In addition,
culture and belief systems play a crucial
role in fostering resilience. An ecological
approach to resilience stresses the impor-
tance of the interaction of the child with
these multiple systems of family, peers, and
community, as well as the cultural resources
and macro issues that affect the child’s world
(Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo,
1992).
PERSONAL FACTORS
Individual characteristics of resilient chil-
dren include having socially engaging tem-
peraments, good communication skills, and
the ability to problem solve. Children who
are resilient are able to make meaning of
2 children and resilience
stressful events and view their world as
manageable, helping them master the stress.
They also experience self-efficacy and self-
esteem as a result of their skills and abilities
that are valued in their social environment.
Resilient children actively participate in
their social environments in positive ways,
seek out others in their family and commu-
nity as resources for dealing with stressful
experiences, and are able to make decisions
about their current circumstances. Further-
more, they have cognitive competencies,
which not only enable them to do well in
school but also to solve everyday problems
and cope with stress. Developmental level
and gender are also factors in resilience:
older children are better able to cope with
stress than younger children, and girls
exhibit more resilience during childhood
than boys.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
Protective factors from the child’s environ-
ment of family and community can also
provide a strong foundation for children
that help ameliorate adverse circumstances.
These protective factors include having a
stable, nurturing relationship with a primary
caregiver during the child’s early years,
support from family members, support from
people in the community, an open, support-
ive educational climate, and participation in
community groups such as religious institu-
tions, youth groups, and civic organizations
(Losel & Bliesener, 1990).
During infancy, a secure attachment rela-
tionship between the child and a caring and
competent primary caregiver is crucial. Such
a relationship provides the child with a foun-
dation of security, trust, and confidence,
contributing to resilience. However, in war
zones and communities with chronic vio-
lence, mothers are often overwhelmed or
depressed, reducing the likelihood that their
young children will form a secure attach-
ment relationship, and jeopardizing their
resilience.
Following infancy and throughout child-
hood, good child–parent relationships con-
tinue to promote resiliency in children. A
key factor is a supportive relationship with
at least one resilient adult. Although this
person is usually a parent, when a parent is
not available, other family members or
caring individuals in the child’s social envi-
ronment can fill this role. These parents and
caring individuals model positive ways of
coping with stress for children, provide them
with reassurance and encouragement, and
help them process and make sense of nega-
tive experiences.
Clear family structures, rituals, and rules,
and strong bonds with family members who
have shared values and experiences, are also
associated with children who are resilient. In
addition to parents, other family members
– including grandparents, aunts, uncles,
older siblings, or other extended family – can
help foster resilience in children. The emo-
tional security and support before, during,
and after stressful events by family members
can also lessen stress, encourage coping
behavior, and contribute to promoting resil-
ience in children.
Social support from the child’s commu-
nity is another key factor in fostering chil-
dren’s resilience. Throughout childhood,
stable and supportive relationships with
competent and caring peers and adults are
crucial. This support comes from neighbors,
friends, teachers, and others that children
interact with in their environment who
provide positive experiences, emotional
support, and create opportunities that
promote competence and self-esteem.
Teachers contribute to children’s resilience
by providing support and structured, stable,
and caring environments. Friends promote
resilience by offering emotional support.
Community, youth, and religious groups

foster resiliency by serving as positive role
models, encouraging competence, and giving
meaning to stressful events.
The shared values, rituals, emotional
expression, and collective memories in the
child’s community contribute to feelings of
belonging, support, and group identity.
These enable the child to feel valued, cared
for, and secure, reducing stress they experi-
ence, and increasing their psychosocial
well-being and capacity for resilience.
Communities are also key in providing
support for parents and other caregivers.
Such moral, spiritual, and emotional support
to caregivers promotes their coping and
enables them to provide the support that
their children need to be resilient.
Culture is a crucial resource for children,
transmitting beliefs and values that enable
coping, and providing productive roles and
responsibilities that contribute to concep-
tions of well-being and resilience (Dawes &
Donald, 2000). In Western contexts, child-
hood resilience may mean fulfilling the cul-
turally scripted role of doing well in school,
while in non-Western contexts it may mean
finding a suitable marriage partner or
working to help support their family.
Spirituality and religion are important
aspects of many cultures. They give meaning
to adverse experiences, help children inter-
pret their experiences, and enable them to
participate in daily activities in spite of over-
whelming stress. In Afghanistan, religious
practices played a key role in helping chil-
dren understand and cope with the impact
of armed conflict, while in countries such as
Sierra Leone and Angola, cleansing rituals
by a traditional healer enabled girls who had
been abducted into armed groups and
deemed unclean, to be productive and
valued members of the community.
Ideology is also an important resource
for children and parents, enabling success-
ful coping under adverse circumstances.
For Palestinians living under occupation,
children and resilience 3
political and ideological commitment is a
crucial resource for providing meaning and
coping with extreme conditions. Children of
parents who have strong ideological com-
mitments are also more likely to be resilient
(Punamaki, 1989).
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
INTERVENTIONS
Interventions that build on existing strengths
and assets from the community help chil-
dren build a strong foundation for resilience.
Children especially need support during and
after adverse events to reduce the likelihood
that they move from being resilient to suffer-
ing developmental harm. Interventions that
provide necessary support as well as build on
community strengths include child friendly
spaces, which seek to reduce risks and to
strengthen protective factors for children
during and after emergencies such as armed
conflict and natural disasters. Child friendly
spaces are safe spaces for children that
combine protection, psychosocial support,
and nonformal education. They promote
safety and protection from risks in the envi-
ronment such as recruitment into armed
groups and sexual violence. Protective
factors are strengthened by mobilizing com-
munities to ensure the safety of children,
building on children’s cognitive competen-
cies, promoting awareness of immediate
risks such as landmines and bad hygiene, and
supporting social integration. Child friendly
spaces aim to foster resilience by engaging
caring adults and youth from the commu-
nity in conducting recreational and expres-
sive activities, informal education, and life
skills with children during emergencies.
Such activities provide the support and
structure that children need when parents
are overwhelmed and less available during a
crisis as they deal with basic survival. In
northern Uganda where there had been
4 children and resilience
ongoing armed conflict, children who
attended child friendly spaces had more pos-
itive outcomes associated with well-being as
defined in Ugandan society – including being
more socially engaged, having more cogni-
tive competencies, having good hygiene, and
exhibiting more prosocial behavior than did
children from communities without child
friendly spaces.
Further research is needed that examines
interventions and protective factors at the
family and community level, as well as the
role that culture plays in fostering resilience.
Longitudinal research in contexts of armed
conflict and natural disasters will also con-
tribute to the knowledge base on children’s
resilience. While the field of psychology has
had a deficits emphasis, focusing largely on
negative developmental outcomes, trauma-
tization, and psychopathology, most popula-
tions in war zones are functional and not
overburdened by excessive suffering. The
phenomena of human resilience challenge a
deficits approach. In the future, it will be
important to identify the sources of resil-
ience and to develop better measures at mul-
tiple levels.
SEE ALSO: Children, Peace and Aggression
in.
REFERENCES
Dawes, A., & Donald, D. (2000). Improving
children’s chances: Developmental theory
and effective interventions in community
contexts. In D. Donald, A. Dawes, &
J. Louw (Eds.), Addressing childhood diversity
(pp. 1–25). Cape Town, South Africa: David
Philip.
Garbarino, J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., &
Pardo, C. (1992). Children in danger: Coping
with the consequences of community violence.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Losel, F., & Bliesener, T. (1990). Resilience in
adolescence: A study on the generalizability of
adolescence. New York, NY: de Gruyter.
Masten, A. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience
processes in development. American
Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238.
Punamaki, R. (1989). Political violence and
mental health. International Journal of Mental
Health, 17, 3–15.
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (2001). Journeys
from childhood to midlife: Risk, resilience, and
recovery. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Anthony, E., & Cohler, B. (Eds.). (1987). The
invulnerable child. New York, NY: Guilford
Press.
Kostelny, K. (2006). A culture-based, integrative
approach: Helping war-affected children. In
N. Boothby, A. Strang, & M. Wessells (Eds.),
A world turned upside down (pp. 19–37).
Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian.
Kostelny, K., & Wessells, M. (2008). The
protection and psychosocial well-being of
young children following armed conflict:
Outcome research on child centered spaces
in northern Uganda. Journal of Developmental
Processes, 3(2), 13–25.