Psigologiese weerbaarheid by kinders uit geskeide, hersaamgestelde en intakte gesinne

[摘要] English: The object of this survey was to establish whether there are differences in resiliencebetween children who respectively come from intact, divorced or reconstructed families.Resilience, as a new construct in the field of social sciences, was investigated. In the past,the focus was mainly on a pathogenic view of mankind. Resilience, on the other hand, is afortigenie view focussing on strengths instead. Resilience firstly implies the positivehandling of stress, secondly the overcoming intolerable occurrences and thirdly it enablesthe individual to 'develop beyond his present level of functioning, Protective factorscontributing towards resilience include external support systems, internal strengths andsocial interpersonal abilities.To develop resilience, a child needs a support system. The family plays an important rolein this. Happy and intact families hold many advantages for a child tremendously, withboth parents sharing the responsibility and obligations with respect to the children. Bothparents fuifiii the gender-role identities for the children and discipline has a consistent andconsequent quality. An intact family provides a framework in which a child can developand master necessary skills.An intact family contributes to a large degree towards the normal development of the child,but it must also be taken into consideration that the family can also act as the maincontributor towards the problems that a child experiences. Divorce for instance cannegatively impact on a child. The parent-child relationship is cardinal in the normaldevelopment of a child. Divorce negatively influences the quality of the parent-childrelationship which is of cardinal importance and impacts largely on the child's inter andintra psychological functioning. Contextual factors, such as the age and gender of a child,as well as the adjustment of the parent after the divorce, and the availability of supportsystems play a major role in the child's adjustment.It takes approximately three years for an adult to adjust to a divorce and be ready for anew romantic relationship. Children, however, are subjected to the decisions of theirparents, irrespective of whetheror not emotional equilibrium has been reached. Childrenare expected to adjust to change for a second time, they may also experience feelings ofloss, rejection and sorrow. Loyalty issues contribute greatly to the stress experienced bychildren in reconstructed -families. From this it becomes clear that stressors such asdivorce or a stepparent family can greatly impact upon a child's general level of functioningand influence the child's resilience.Schools from five provinces, namely Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-Westand the Free State were selected to partake in this study. The children in their middlechildhood from all population groups were selected to form the research sample. The finalsurvey group comprised 50 children from intact families; 53 children from divorced familiesand 36 children from reconstructed families. The resilience of the respective groups werecompared with another. The data was statistically analyzed using a oneway MANOVA,after which a single factor analyses of variance was used to determine which of thedependant variables showed a significant difference with respect to their mean scores,and secondly, to establish which groups differ significantly with respect to their meanscores. The Scheffé-results showed that children from reconstructed families attained ahigher mean score on the Piers-Harris sub scale 1-score (behavior), with reference to selfimage,than did children from divorced families. Results furthermore showed that children,who were exposed to divorce, attained a higher mean score pertaining to the SymptomScale 10 (major depression and dysthymia) than did children from intact families. Theresults thus suggest that only marginal differences exist between the resilience of thethree groups.

[发布机构] University of the Free State