Stress and Antistress in Child and Adult’s Representation

Abstract

The results of a theoretical and empirical study of a child's and a teenager's representations of stressful situations, experiencing specific emotions, and coping with stress in comparison with adult assessments of child and adolescent stress are presented. Situations of evaluation and hopelessness are shown to be common for children and adolescents. Depending on the stress level, children distinguish the situation of loss, but adolescents distinguish the situation of abandonment. In the experience of stressful situations, the emotions associated with them and strategies for coping with stress are determined. The children are more often associated with stress and the experience of fear; the teenagers experience fear, anxiety, and resentment. The phenomenon of replacing a stressor (a stressful situation) with subjective experiences of fear, anxiety, anger, and resentment was found in both age groups but significantly more expressed in the children's sample. Children's and adolescents' profiles of coping with stress as a way of reducing tension and achieving an anti-stress state show the greatest similarity compared to the assessment of the types of stressful situations and emotions. The typical coping strategies, such as seeking Relaxing Diversions, friends, and Problem solving, were revealed. The differences between the children's and adolescents' own assessments of stress and coping strategies and the assessments of adults were demonstrated. An adult tends to infantilize both a child and a teenager, attributing to the child such coping strategies as Social support (parent support), acting up, and seeking Relaxing diversion, and to the teenager, social support (parent support), friends, and acting up. In conclusion, the prospects for the study of child and adolescent stress — the construction of hierarchical models of stress and coping strategies in children and adolescents, including both conscious, partially conscious, and unconscious characteristics of stress and the resource capacity of a child of different ages in experiencing and successfully coping with everyday life problems — are shown.