Challenges to the developmental study of coping

Abstract

We summarize progress in the developmental study of coping, including specification of a multilevel framework, construction of definitions of coping that rely on regulation as a core concept, and identification of developmentally graded members of families of coping. We argue that these accomplishments are a prelude to the real tasks of a developmental agenda: (1) identifying age-graded shifts in how children and adolescents recognize, react to, and deal with the stressors they encounter in their daily lives; (2) determining the developmental processes that underlie these shifts; and (3) describing and explaining differential pathways for negotiating these normative transitions.