A. Child/family history of stressors. The platform from which a family adjusts to an acute stressor may be rocky or smooth. The family challenged historically with multiple, or ongoing, or chronic stressors such as poverty, domestic violence, or addictions, faces a more difficult adjustment to a new, acute stressor. For the child who has faced multiple losses, changes, and disruptions in her caregivers, any new stressor can be magnified.

B. Temperament. The child’s temperament is a factor in how she/he faces a stressor. In fact, the child’s temperament sometimes influences whether an event is interpreted as stressful. For the shy, slowly adapting 3-year-old child, a birthday party in a bowling alley may challenge all his coping skills and may overwhelm him. For a child whose temperament is easy going, and/or whose history includes visits to a bowling alley with older siblings, this birthday party is joyfully anticipated and presents challenges easily faced.

C. Developmental age/regrieving. The lens with which a child understands the stressor or anticipated transition is informed by his developmental stage. That is, his cognitive capacity will change as he develops and the meaning he gives to the stressor will significantly change. His developmentally based awkward/confusing understanding will determine his experience and ability to adjust successfully.

For example, the 6-year-old child facing the birth of his first sibling will understand the event differently than a 2-year-old. Competitiveness for the caregiver’s attention, meaning given to the new family constellation, meaning of the very definition of family, and the effect this birth has on his daily routine both inside and outside his home are all considerations for older siblings. However, the 2-year-old’s capacity to understand a new sibling’s appearance in his family, his ability to express feelings meaningfully, not just rotely, as well as his experiencing of this newest family member differ significantly from an older child.

For many children, this stressor is considered “normative”; that is, most children face the birth of a sibling and are able to successfully adapt to the challenges inherent to “sharing” the primary caregiver. On the other hand, the death of a parent, divorce, and the diagnosis of a sibling with a significant special need are considered “nonnormative” stressors. These or any stressors that can be construed as a loss will be revisited by the child at each new developmental stage and will be regrieved.

For instance, the 4-year-old child, whose 2-year-old brother is diagnosed with autism, has a very limited understanding of the impact of this stressor. She can observe and experience stress and grief as it manifests itself within the family unit; she can accompany her brother to therapies and even engage in them herself as his “helper”; she can react to his behavioral differences. As this older sister grows, she will make new meaning of her brother’s disability, and how it affects her. At 9 or 10 years of age, it would be normal for her to feel embarrassed by his behaviors at times when she has friends visit at home. For this reason, she may avoid bringing friends home. As a senior in high school, she may feel guilt and relief as she leaves the family home to become a college student. At each stage of her development, she will regrieve this loss as it affects her and her family.

D. Culture. Socioeconomic, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences matter when assessing the impact on what constitutes a stressor or the presumed magnitude on a child’s
adjustment. A family’s religious beliefs and ideology are often the protective factors that affect the stressor’s impact on the parent and the child.

Also, as the child faces the stressor, the contextual meaning is affected by the “normalization” of the stressor; the absence or prevalence of the “event” should be regarded within this cultural context to assess the magnitude of the stressor as it impacts the child. For 3-8-year-olds in Africa, going to a funeral is normative but not for most children acculturated in the United States. Getting braces or birth control at 16 years may be viewed more as a “right of passage” for some adolescents than a stressor. On the other hand, adjusting to an extended family member’s move into a child’s bedroom for the foreseeable future, facing a parent’s arrest and anticipating his prison term, and losing one’s home due to financial hardship are even more stressful if the child also has to face the additional stress of feeling isolated from other children’s experiences.

A. Parents need to face it first. No matter what the stressor on the family, the parents need to face it first. A parent’s capacity to face the stressor and demonstrate equipoise has a significant impact on the outcome of the child’s adjustment. Crisis theory reminds us that re-establishing equilibrium after the onset of a stressor is primarily dependent on how well the adult models appropriate coping skills.

For example, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, millions of television viewers watched families being temporarily sheltered in New Orleans Superdome. In many cases, parents and family members lay on cots as children played near them. Each adult caregiver’s emotional capacity to face her tragic and painful circumstances and to demonstrate parental competence, emotional safety, and guidance were critical to her child’s emotional adjustment to this significant stressor.

B. Scaffold; do not overprotect. No parent wants her children to suffer ever. All parents want to protect their child from harm, pain, and grief. It is counterintuitive to allow children to confront the stressor head on. Parents need to “buffer” children by titrating amounts of stress so the child can develop new coping skills to master this new stressor and not become overwhelmed.

In fact, when a child feels sad or mad, which is often the case when she faces a transition, anticipating and allowing for those normal feelings is useful. A child experiencing separation brings up feelings of helplessness, grief, sadness, and confusion in parents as they watch their child struggle with dependence and autonomy. Understanding that the coping skills the child accrues in the process of separating, the pride when she feels successful, and the permission to experience a full range of appropriate feelings set a stage for future successes during transitions to a new classroom, a new school, etc.