Feeling bad: exploring sources of distress among pre-adolescent children.
C E Lewis,
J M Siegel and
M A Lewis
Previous studies of stress in childhood have used instrumentscontaining items describing events/conditions thought by adultsto be stressful for children. In interviews with 5th- and 6th-gradechildren, we asked them to describe circumstances that wouldmake or had made them feel bad, nervous, or worried. After pretestingthis children's list of items, we administered it to 2,480 5thgraders. Subjects ranked how bad they would/did feel if eachitem happened and, also, how often each had occurred. Childrenalso self-rated their mental health status. There were significantassociations between children's ratings of mental health and"Feel Bad" scores. Girls rates most items significantly higher(more bad) than boys. While there were some sex and racial differencesin ratings, the rank orders of items by different subgroupswere highly correlated. Factor analysis revealed three dimensions,containing items related to: 1) anxieties surrounding conflictwith parents; 2) self-image and peer-group relationship; and3) geographic mobility. Only five or six of the 20 items representdiscrete events (changing schools); the rest represent chronicrole strains (being left out of a group, being pressured toget good grades). The consequences of these strains are yetto be determined.
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