New Highlights About Worries, Coping, and Well-Being During Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand what children’s and adolescents’ worries are and the strategies used to face them. Two studies were carried out. Study one had a sample of 1,207 Portuguese children and adolescents, 48.4% boys, attending 5th to 9th grades, mean age 12.5, participated in a first approach to children and adolescents’ theories about worries and coping with worries. Study two had a sample of 527 Portuguese children and adolescents, 46.8% boys, 5th to 9th grades, mean age 12.4, aimed to replicate study one and to go in depth on worries and coping and gender differences. Confronted with questions about the frequency of worries, the impact of worries, the kind of worries and how to cope with them, it was clear that the majority of children and adolescents get worried frequently, part of them let worries interfere significantly in their lives, and the best coping strategy is distraction, less frequently they seek social support, try to calm down or engage in health compromising behaviours such as drinking or eating or being violent. Other strategies were reported but none of them was frequent as these ones. Family, peers (getting supported) and leisure time (getting distracted) are important issues in young people’s well-being but they play differential roles. School seems part of “the problem” but never “part of the solution”. The role of personal competences such as resilience, self-regulation, and problem-solving appears less frequently in these age groups. Mental health is a forgotten area in health promotion in schools, but indeed being worried frequently without being able to solve worrying issues does not contribute at all for children and adolescents’ well being and furthermore is able to interfere with the so feared school success. The implications for health promotion interventions in families and in schools are discussed.