Determinants and Effectiveness of Children’s Coping with Political Violence

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Abstract
We examined how age and gender, and the intensity of political violence and stressful events influence children’s coping styles, and the effectiveness of coping. The participants were 185 Palestinian boys and girls of 10-13 years of age. Intensity of political violence was indicated by comparing a group tested before the Intifada ( N = 89) and a group during the Intifada ( N = 96). The results showed that older children used more emotional and cognitive coping, and a wider coping repertoire than younger ones. Boys used more Problem restructuring and behavioural coping than girls, who, for their part, used more emotional coping than boys. The more intensive the political violence was, the more Problem restructuring and the less Active fighting and Hostile confrontation children used. Further, during an intensively violent period of Intifada, children’s coping repertoire was narrow and involved little emotional and cognitive coping modes. Personal exposure to stressful events increased behavioural coping, Active fighting and Problem restructuring, and decreased emotional modes of coping. The effectiveness of coping styles in alleviating psychosocial problems varied according to the intensity of political violence. Problem restructuring, Active fighting, and behavioural coping were effective only during the Intifada, but not before the Intifada.