Resilience in children's adaptation to negative life events and stressed environments

Abstract

Functional adequacy (the maintenance of competent functioning despite an interfering emotionality) is a benchmark of resilient behavior under stress. While resilient adults can be identified as adults who once experienced a great deal of despair as children, I am not prepared to mark off the construct of resilience because such people may carry with them a realistic baggage of sadness and unhappiness. The very nature of despair that is present for children of the ghetto, the status of minority children in today's America, all have a reality that can neither be ignored or denied. Perhaps a portion of resilient behavior is the evaluative awareness of a difficult reality combined with a commitment to struggle, to conquer the obstacle, and to achieve one's goals despite the negative circumstances to which one has been exposed, which were and remain evocative of sadness.