Family resilience and flourishment: Well‐being among children with mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders

Abstract

Approximately 20% of children and adolescents in the United States are affected by mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders. Child flourishment and family resilience contribute to healthy family development, including the promotion of child MEB wellbeing. Identifying factors that promote child flourishment and family resilience are critical. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and parenting factors associated with family resilience and child flourishment among children aged 6–17 years with MEB disorders. This was a secondary analysis of the 2016–2017 National Survey of Children's Health. The sample consisted of parents and their children (n = 1,900, weighted n = 5,375,670). Data were weighted to be representative of the US population and analyzed using descriptive statistics and linear regression. We found that only 6.3% of children aged 6–17 with an MEB were optimally flourishing. Parental aggravation was negatively associated with child flourishment, and parental coping was positively associated with child flourishment. In total, 66.5% of families with children exhibited resilience. Parental coping and availability of parental emotional support were positively associated with family resilience. Potential interventions that leverage study findings include parent training to increase parental emotional regulation (e.g., increase frustration tolerance, coping skills) and family navigation services to increase parental support (e.g., emotional support, coping skills) through the child's treatment trajectory. Overall, this study provides evidence of a disparity in flourishment in America's youth with MEB disorders, and despite this adversity, families are resilient.

Family Resilience and Its Association with Psychosocial Adjustment of Children with Chronic Illness: A Latent Profile Analysis

“…As in previous studies (Herbell, Breitenstein, Melnyk, & Guo, 2020), parents with employment status and families with medical insurance coverage for treatment of children were more likely to belong to the high family resilience group compared to the low family resilience group; this partially supports the assertion that employment instability and financial constraints are risk factors for family resilience (Nwanonyiri et al, 2019). Families affected by unemployment tend to focus their energy on improving finances rather than on family relationships or parenting (Orthner et al, 2003); thus, family economic resources are an important protective factor of family resilience.…”

Family Resilience, Parenting Styles and Psychosocial Adjustment of Children With Chronic Illness: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Despite the above mentioned negative impacts of childhood chronic illness, there is also evidence that some families with children with chronic illness, including mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders ( 11 ), pediatric asthma ( 12 ), type 1 diabetes ( 13 ) and pediatric cancer ( 14 ) demonstrate family strength to positively cope with the challenge of chronic illness ( 15 , 16 ), and take advantage of their stressful experiences to develop stronger relationships, better family cohesion, and positive family belief systems ( 17 , 18 ).…”

“…Walsh ( 19 ) defined the family system's capacity to withstand and rebound from adversity, to become stronger and more resourceful as “family resilience.” Family resilience involves there being shared family belief systems, family organizational processes and shared family communication or problems solving processes. Families of children with mental, emotional and behavior disorders can sometimes be more resilient than families in the general population ( 11 ). However, family resilience among Chinese families of children with chronic illness remained less studied.…”

“…Family function may be one of the key aspects of family resilience ( 23 ), but the relationship between family resilience and child adjustment has not been widely studied. Some studies even propose that family resilience does not necessarily ensure children's psychosocial adjustment, for some children still present with anxiety, depression, learning disabilities and behavior or conduct problems ( 11 ). One possible explanation for the differences is the varied measures of family resilience used in previous studies.…”

“…In a sample of Latino Youth, authoritative parenting usually occurred within highly cohesive family systems, while authoritarian parenting usually occurred within less cohesive family systems ( 32 ). Family resilience may also be related to parental coping and parental emotional support ( 11 ). However, the details of the relationship between family resilience and parenting styles remain unexplored.…”