Coping with stressful events in older children and young adolescents.

Abstract

Both the capacity to generate alternative solutions to cope with stressful events and the strategies actually used to cope with interpersonal and academic stressors were examined in a sample of junior high school age youngsters. Subjects were moderately consistent in the generation and use of pToblem- and emotion-focused coping with the two types of events, and they adjusted the numbiT of problem-focused alternative solutions they generated to match their appraisals of the controllability of the cause of interpersonal stressors. The number of alternative solutions generated and strategies used for interpersonal stressors was related to both self-reports and maternal reports of internalizing and externalizing emotional/behavioral problems. Specifically, the problem-focused alternatives generated and strategies used were negatively related to emotional/behavioral problems, wherea s the emotion-focused alternatives generated and strategies used were positively related to emotional/ behavioral problems. Coping with academic stress was not related to emotional/behavioral problems. Self-reported emotional/behavioral problems varied as a function of the match between perceived control and-the generation of problem-focused alternatives for coping with social stressors but did not vary as a function of the match between perceived control and other coping strategies. Stressful events of both major and minor magnitude in the lives of children and adolescents are significantly related to youngsters' emotional and behavioral problems (see reviews by Compas, 1987b; Johnson, 1986). However, substantial individual differences exist in the levels of problems that are associated with stressful experiences. This variability is due in part to differences in the resources available and methods used by children and adolescents to cope with adverse events (Compas, 1987a). Prior studies of child and adolescent coping have shown that cognitive and behavioral efforts to alter sources of stress as well as attempts to regulate the negative emotions associated with stressful circumstances are important in reducing the negative effects of a range of stressful events, including interpersonal problems and achievement-related stressors (Compas, 1987a).