Resilience not enough for at-risk adolescents, says BGSU-led study

Adolescent children may be more resilient than adults think—as parents and others are occasionally reminded—but sometimes, personal resiliency alone isn’t enough.

Jean Gerard

When adolescents face multiple difficulties at home and school, with family and peers, their personal resources aren’t sufficient to cope successfully, according to a study led by Jean Gerard, family and consumer sciences.

As a result, argue Gerard and her colleague, Cheryl Buehler of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, ensuring adolescent wellness requires targeting not only youngsters’ personal assets but also availability of resources in their families and communities. Their findings have been published in the November/December issue of the journal Child Development.

Community supports can include such things as parent support groups, youth organizations, mentorship programs and a more personal school environment, where at-risk youth are less likely to get “lost” and feel alienated, says Gerard.

She maintains that interventions with at-risk adolescents that focus solely on building resilience through development of personal characteristics are misguided. That’s because such an approach places the burden of responsibility for coping with social challenges on the youngster.

“Kids are resilient,” Gerard says, noting that most children “bounce back” from stressful experiences such as divorce, and can handle two or three stressors in their lives. But when teenagers experience adversity across several areas of their lives, their ability to cope is jeopardized, and it’s almost unrealistic to expect them to manage well, she says.

“Resilience is more than just personal assets. It’s about having support in the environment,” adds Gerard, whose research is based upon data from more than 5,000 students in grades 7-11 who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

Compiled from 1994-96, the data provides comprehensive information about personal and social factors that influence adolescent health and well-being, according to Gerard. She is seeking a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to analyze further data about at-risk youth as they enter adulthood, including their employment patterns, personal relationships and mental health.

For adolescents, family, peers and school are important sources of connections, she notes. But when those sources aren’t supportive, and poor neighborhood conditions are added to the mix, “where are they (youth) going to get any affirmation of self?” she asks. “They need connections to caring adults and safe havens for retreat.”

Among the 15 risk factors targeted in the study were family poverty, marital conflict, weak bonds between parents and teens, peer rejection, weak attachment to school, prejudice by peers at school and unsafe neighborhoods. The researchers also considered three specific “protective factors”—self-esteem, school achievement and problem-solving skills, meaning ability to approach social dilemmas with planning.

An encouraging finding, they say, is that teens with one or more protective factors were at lower risk for emotional and behavioral problems. For instance, even those who had many risk factors were less likely to be depressed and delinquent if they had high self-esteem.

However, the protective assets weren’t enough to overcome the effects of risk factors across home, school and neighborhood. Even among teens with multiple protective factors, those who experienced risk factors in two or more social settings had higher levels of depression and more conduct problems than peers with risk factors in fewer settings.

“On their own, the three protective factors don’t compensate fully for an adverse environment,” Gerard says. Although positive influences, “they are not enough,” she adds. “Cumulative risk requires cumulative protection.”