Family Process Influences on the Resilient Responses of Youth

The concept of resiliency, or how young people thrive in the face of adversity, brings a positive focus to youth development research and has emerged as an important topic in the youth development field. Adversity, or risk factors, may be internally or externally generated, and may acute or chronic. Researchers often point to the balance of between risk factors and protective factors as the determining influences on a child\u27s resiliency. If protective factors in the layers of a child\u27s world (such as self, family, school, and community) outweigh the risk factors, then a child will be resilient. However, questions remain about why siblings who share the same family, school, and community, often respond differently to the same adversity. Though a child\u27s temperament is often considered the answer, researchers also point to the fact that underlying relationship processes surrounding adversity play a role in how young people respond and how children in the same family may have different responses