Coping Skills

Abstract

Coping skills include a range of actions and adaptations in response to stressful experiences, which can be critical for determining pathways of resilience and vulnerability in children and adolescents. This article describes major theories of stress and coping concentrating on a developmental motivational theory of coping. Following this background, four topics are addressed, including (1) the coping skills used by children and adolescents and how they change with age; (2) the impact of coping skills on adjustment and wellbeing, extending this to consider other processes and competencies (e.g., perceived control) integral to understanding the impact of coping skills; (3) the capacity for coping flexibility and its potential for new research directions; and (4) the evidence of coping skills as mechanisms of the effectiveness of interventions and therapies for at-risk youth.