Children's behavior under stress and its relation to training by parents to respond to stress situations.

Abstract

Stress, frustration, and conflict are important concepts in mental hygiene, and much research has been devoted to aspects of stressful situations and the reactions of individuals exposed to them. This study is in the area of young children's reactions to stress, concerned specifically with the relationship between the children's reactions and certain antecedent conditions: namely, training to respond to stress situations. A natural and realistic stress situation was selected for study, a two-day period of hospitalization for minor surgery. In accordance with principles of learning, children who have been trained for stress in a way judged to be effective should have more adjustive responses in a stress situation than those who have received training judged less effective. The study was constructed to investigate the degree to which children's previous training was related to their behavior in a new and unfamiliar stress situation.