Family resilience and flourishment: Well-being among children with mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders.

Abstract

Approximately 20% of children and adolescents in the United States are affected by mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders. Child flourishment and family resilience contribute to healthy family development, including the promotion of child MEB wellbeing. Identifying factors that promote child flourishment and family resilience are critical. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and parenting factors associated with family resilience and child flourishment among children aged 6-17 years with MEB disorders. This was a secondary analysis of the 2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health. The sample consisted of parents and their children (n = 1,900, weighted n = 5,375,670). Data were weighted to be representative of the US population and analyzed using descriptive statistics and linear regression. We found that only 6.3% of children aged 6-17 with an MEB were optimally flourishing. Parental aggravation was negatively associated with child flourishment, and parental coping was positively associated with child flourishment. In total, 66.5% of families with children exhibited resilience. Parental coping and availability of parental emotional support were positively associated with family resilience. Potential interventions that leverage study findings include parent training to increase parental emotional regulation (e.g., increase frustration tolerance, coping skills) and family navigation services to increase parental support (e.g., emotional support, coping skills) through the child's treatment trajectory. Overall, this study provides evidence of a disparity in flourishment in America's youth with MEB disorders, and despite this adversity, families are resilient.