Resilience in early childhood development

Resilience in Children

Luther (2006) shows that in his study that throughout decades resilience has been a study so that people could understand relations with development, adaptation, and adversity (Luther 2006). With this collection of papers, he shows that there is a study of which resilience will enter a new era that is conflicted. Tarter et al. shows in their study that even with critics that want a resignation of the study of resilience due to the concept being static in nature, it still is being studied today (Tarter et al., 1999). Yates shows in a study with many authors that there is actually lots of potential for research in this field so that people can understand a future analysis and practice of this (Yates et al., 2004).

Sameroff and Luthar have observations that are truly timely and valuable in the research with resilience and all of people that provide a service. These people are interested in helping children achieve positive outcomes. With both of the authors, they are great at highlighting the determined nature that is multi-dimensional through a concept that will have adversity in adaptations. This will review the main ideas that are discussed and proposed by the researchers and will also help to refine and to extend the ideas, it will also help through broad suggestions to give ideas for practice and research done in the future.

Resilience Research Background

The word resilience comes from a Latin background and resilire, which means to leap back or recoil), this is a concept that is general in nature and has a positive adaptation with this in a challenge of context. In the fields of engineering or science that is physical in nature, resilience means that something will not break when it is under any sort of stress or any sort of strain, it may mean that it can return to its original form in the manner of something like a rubber band or even a spring. Masten et al. did a study that shows that with science that deals with human development, this word has a very diverse meaning, generally it will refer to overcoming a traumatic experience and other disadvantages that people had in their lives (Masten et al., 1990).

Luthar speaks of people that are amazed by stories that have resilience in them for years. There are a lot of ancient stories that will tell of people that have overcome great feats so that they can be triumphant, the truth is though, the study of this just started about 4 decades ago (Luthar, 2006). But, in the last 40 plus years, there have been huge advancements made in this research and it is really important to know that the early years of childhood are a very important time to teach, promote, and help them understand resilience. It is during this time period that there are roots implanted for competency and this is when protective systems are emerging in the brain. Wright and Masten showed in their study that children may develop a sort of resilience by a process that is natural while others will need to have this train of thought promoted to them. It is important that in early years, there is a push made for this and that people work to promote this and reduce any risk that they may face (Wright and Masten 2005).

For children that are dealing with adversity and are at a disadvantage, it is important to learn about resilience that occurs naturally for them. People need to understand how to make this positive change so that it can be improved. The study completed by Wright and Masten shows that through studies with intervention and prevention ideas can be tested that come from research because of resilience, we can learn the best goals, and understand good methods and timing development interventions to learn the best approach (Wright and Masten, 2005).

Flaws In Resilience Researchers

For a study of resilience, you need to define and isolate it. This is hard for several reasons. First, with resilience it is a phenomena that has a large variety to you, it could mean that this is something like dealing with a loss of a family member, or saying that a behavior is normalized that your child may do, or even watching the success of a younger student that grew up in a terrible neighborhood. Second, understand that with resilience there is a construct that will help with human judgment and will show both undesirable and desirable endings. You need to understand that people need to determine what there is a criteria for to understand if someone is ok with their life path and so that they can understand the risks by talking to the child. A child that breezes through development is competent or adaptive and doesn't have to create resilience. You also need to understand that to measure resilience there isn't just one criteria, it is extremely multifaceted and has many dimensions to it. So, that can be the reason why there are varying definitions and measurements for this. Lastly, Masten shows us in a study that there are levels of analysis that greatly vary to understand human resilience (Masten, 2004).

Getting to the bottom of resilience, one need to find the complex adaptations and the options for development through living systems that have been done throughout time through certain studies. Masten's study in 2004 shows that first generation research on resilience has been extremely consistent and shows that there is power in the adaptive process (Masten 2004).

The Context of Resilience Studies and Research

Through systemic research about resilience in kids through studies on vulnerability and understanding the risk that may cause mental illness. When researchers started to study children that had chances of higher risk, mainly because of mental illness or the stress that they deal with in their lives, it helped to provide more research information. There were many researchers that pioneered these studies and that worked hard together so that they can understand this all. There are many collaborations that have created a great new science in the development of this with resilience, at the time that they did this they also worked on the development of psychopathology. The study by Masten and Powell shows that these pioneers in this field had great insight that helped them create better policies and practices for children at high risk (Masten and Powell, 2003).

Resilience Questions Researchers Worked On

Basic studies on resilience mainly address these questions:

What has created the development that is positive or any recovery for a child that may be in dangerous circumstances?

What happens naturally during the protective process in human development?

How can we create effective strategies of intervention that will help promote positive development in children that are at the highest risk.

Masten and Powell speak of this again in their study and talk about even though researchers are focusing on outcomes that are positive and why they happen, they still need to make sure that they know it is important to understand threats and the risks that may hurt development and ways to overcome them (Masten and Powell, 2003).

Research Results Recently

A study done by Caspi talked about developmental research on many topics relating to resilience has come together to provide great solutions and to help build this human development at all levels (Caspi et al., 2003). Masten's study in 2001 shows that learning problems and problems with self-control will start in the early preschool years and will depend on the quality of their parents (Masten, 2001). Yates shows in a study that there is intervention that can be done and can be preventative when they are in preschool and they are in their infancy years depending on their environments (Yates et al., 2003). Having success in school at an early age because they had good care at home and positive environments to grow up in made a difference. Two studies done by Egeland and Luthar show that there are care systems that can be focused on and that can help to build competency and show strengths for young children, it also can help to reduce any risk and prevent problems by catching them early (Egeland, 1993; Luthar 2000). Yates and Masten show in their research that brain development research has shown that stress can cause issues with development and that this can shape the way a child develops (Yates and Masten, 2004).

Understanding Two Important Researchers

With Sameroff's work, it speaks of a need to resolve clarity issues on being able to conceptualize resilience. He talks about areas that are of concern and that center on being able to show that resilience is different from competence, this comes out of the transactions that we have that come from levels of analysis, that keeps it multi-dimensional and dynamic. What the author shows is that this is a process of development and we need to understand this using considerations in context. The Masten study speaks of Luther's observations that show that there are some kids that do great in high risk areas while others do poor (Masten et al., 2006)

As a situation gets more complex, the Masten study shows us that that Sameroff talks about the words "relatively well" and this can have both negative and positive adaptations (Masten 2001). Luthar shows that children shows that competency one way and not in any other ways. Masten shows in his study with Sameroff, he takes this further to show that behaviors are going to be adaptive throughout the context of our cultures. He argues that findings are consistent and that there are factors and certain processes that will show a risk exposure (Masten 2010). He also talks about how certain behaviors that are antisocial will show more in situations that are high risk. The Masten study from 2006 shows a recognition that is growing into a process that is multi-dimensional and that the attention will start to shift to the question of it different aspects with positive adaptation will end up relating to people in a certain time or a certain context (Masten et al., 2006).

It is important to assess resilience based on culture and context in the features that are out there. There are lots of studies that take it beyond just one dimension in the resilience studies. Luthar shows in his study that there is an awareness that is growing in terms of influences for biological options for resilience. Through the works she has done in this subject, she calls for more attention to be paid to the biological factors that may cause resilience (Luthar et al. 2000). Past this, Masten's study shows there is attention that we need to pay to transactions that exist with influences that are biological and psychosocial (Masten 2004).

With more recent resilience theories, Shonkoff and Meisels have shown that it has started to shift more towards the processes of development and away from characteristics on an individual level (Shonkoff and Meisels, 2000). In the end of their studies, both of these authors talk about this being a dynamic process of development instead of it being a trait. This is echoed by many other researchers including Luthar in her studies and Sameroff in his studies. All of these researchers together tend to support the idea that this is part of an adaptive process so that children can reach these positive outcomes no matter what they have to face. This is important because it is the same way that the process of circumstances that are favorable will come out to show their face. When you are studying adoptions in a positive nature, you need to make sure that they are generally informing and defining mutually.