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-ge of Anxiet~y C~ :'Stress Research Seeks I Clues to Why Children ~ 'Can't Cope With Life But Some Seem Invulnerable To Strains That Can Lead To Drug Abuse, Suicide - When Risk of Driwng Rises By JOANN S. LWBLLN ~1 .4f0)f.Rfyorl[r~of TfEwALLSTReCTJO['RYAL f The niite-yearold boy with a psychottc' mother, given to brwts of screaming had' a lot going against him. But the little boy found a way to cope: When his mother't out- bursts became frenzied. he retreated to the basement where he had established an oasis' of blankets, pillows, toys and records. ~ Another tune-year-old boy came from a far more secure. middle•class home in Mis• ' souri. but he was ttnable to cope when his parents were divorced He was forlorn and depressed'for months, his grades began to s!tp. he rejected his friends and he cried often. Both of these cases are cited by Dr. E. James Anthony: professor of child psychia- This ts the third in a series of rour our nrfirfes on stress and how it affects ht'r5. try at Wa;hington University's school of , m-d cine. The first'child'Dr. Anthony calls °m: ulnerable'."because-, rather than break- ing down, such children "manage to find' these sort of oases even under the mosU stressful living conditions." Such, resilient children often exeel!in school and in their professions as adults. The second example is that of a"vulnerable" cNld. These children have difficulty in dealing with even ordinary life events, such as starting school or enter- ::g puberty: The puzzle facing Dr. Anthony and other researchers is, why are some chiliren more_ iike the firstyoungster and others more like sec,nd^ So:ne clues are emergir.g from e new field of the study of stressful life evenrts ih children and~ adolescents. Links -are being found, for example, between tam- i # fly stress and~ early academic failure and later social problenLS, including drug abuse, Icar aecidents and juvenile delinquency: oi Researchers say there i5 a critical need' for more information because young people iave probably, never been exposed to such a tfariety of social changes and tensions as ihey are today. "The main goallis to develop healthier children so we can h'ave healthier adults," says Joanne C. Gersten. associatf professor of psychology at Arizona State University. "rhe soaring divorce rate, greater aca- jemic pressures, trpre working mothers andI mily mobility and affluence make it hard' !or young people to cope„says Dr, Stephe In -~iersh, assistant director for children and uth' at the National Institute of Mental' V. alth, or NIMH. They produce "an envi- yonment iG which children and, adolescents have much greaterapparenti choices as to Irbat, they can do ... and a less clear stivc- >saire in which to live," be says. Drugs as "Relief" _=One of the most publicized signs of many ungsters' inability t© cope with stressful fevents is drug abuse. "If you have to change too often, your abillty to adapt gets worn ~ down'r and you turn to drugs "as a way of ~relieving the stt4ss.'.' says David Duncan, who was the executive director of a Houston halfway house for troubled teen-agers before I becoming associate professor of community health at Southern Illfnois University: There are other indiwttons of some 1youngsters' failure to deal with the piling up jof life's strains. Dr. Hersh cites a presiden- tial commission's estimate that 15% of the ]62 million Americans under 18 have signifi- Jant mental or emotional prohiems. The roblems take tnaay'fortnr About one mll• roblems teen-agers rtm away from home every dvar; suicide among young people has, .teached alarming proportions. with the rate among those aged 15 to 24' nearly doubling between 1968 and 1977, and accordirog to a federal esnmatethere are about 3.3 million "problem drinkers" among those aged 14 to .17. ~ I The high suicide rate, in particularr re- Pects young people's sense of helplessness + about dealing witti, pressure from school. n ,~friends and'parents. "They, just,haven't de- ~ 1-velbped the coping skills;" says Calvin Fred. erick;, whoi heads the emergencyrmental- tiealth program, at the NI1f1l There are 190 sui¢ide-prevention centersin,the U.S:, many of which counsel teemagers: some by using adolescents to handle the initial calls. But Sfr. Frederick argues that "not nearlyy enodgh is being done." The federal grsern- ment. he says, lacks the money to help high schools and colleges set up theiT, own sui. cide-precention program. However. severali hundred school sys• tems:, reacting to teen-agers' problems in general. have created "peer-counseling pro- grams" to teach junior-high and higli school students coping skills and to help them com- municate their feelings. A handful oG com- munities are also starting aleoMl-education cou rses. To shelter, the nation s one million teen- i aged runaways there are now 200 counseling ' organizations- known, as runaway houses- in about 100 i communities, compared with only stx houses 11 years ago, 0nce they ' dealt exclusively with ~ transients ; now they li deal more withl young people in their com, munities,who have problems with their, fam- ~ ilies. their schools and thenLselves. Helping Kids, Cope l In Chicago, Qevelknd and White Plains. "t:Y . "preventive psychiatry" centers have I been set up to help, youngsters cope with di- I voreed or sick parents or with the trauma o6' a parentis death. Across the country: child ~ F psychiatrists are greatly in demand`. There I are about .3.000 practicing in the U.S. toda ily Pleaee Turn to PnqrSY. Colwnn4 THE WALL STiREET JOURNAL TUESDAY, APRIL 10. 1979 , f

Nge of Anxiety: Researchers Seek Clues to Why Children Can't Cope Continued From Firsf Page ompared with about 11i)00 a decade ago. But this it not to say that Americann outh is falling apart. The majority o6young eopie don't fall into either of the two ex- remes of vulnerability or invulnerability, nd they cope amazingly well with the tressful challenges of growing up. Parental ressure to achieve good grades, for in- tance, helps many youngsters succeed in :boo] and in I1fe: Contrary to popular be- ef; adolescence Isn't a period of universal motional turbulence, Arguments with par- nts, confusion abouT body ehanges and un- redictable mood swings may be typical of nly dne-Ctfth of teen-agers, experts say. In ict, the most intense reaction do the strains f adolescence generally can be found mong girls aged 11 and 11 , What is so puzzling to researchers is why Imilar life changes prove harmful for some hlldren but not for others. It has been rtnd that coping styles are developed in in- incy and-play a role in personality develop, lent and adult behavior. The ctuldren~who appear to have an In- ate sense of how to deal with problems be- mg to ttie ranks of the "invulnerable," so amed by psychiatrists because of their self- onfidence and success despite suffering be- l reavement at an earty age or growing up with violent, abusive parents. Besides having athletic, artistic or Intei+ lectual' skills, such youngsters often are aided by a supportive person-a parent or a parent substitute-wln encourages ttiem "to become themselves, to be autonomous, to experiment and' explore," says Washington University's Dr. Anthony, who has tracked a group of these "superkid5" for many, yearss through their early adulthood. But invulnerable children pay a price for their ability to separate themselves from stressfulYamilylife. They become aloof, Dr. Anthony says. "~As young adults they have difficulty getting completely Involved with heterosexual relationships,"' and they tend to have unhappy marriages. Then there is the opposite category: the "vulnerable" youngster. Coping with even the ordinary strains of growing up, is a struggle for these youngsters "because theyy tiavP a tendency to make a nightmare out of smalll occurrences: they' are bypersensi- tive," says Dr. Anthony. Some children become vulnerable be- cause of early parental overprotectiveness. "They re liandledi rigidly and strictly tiy their parents. .. they have less capacity to handle new experiences in life," says child therapist Lois B., Murphy, who spent 16 years working at the Menninger Founda- tion's Coping Projecti, studying 32 normal youngsters growing up in Topeka. Kans: ( But vulnerability isn't necessarily a life- long condition. tatly three out of 19 Topeka pre-schoolers identified! by Mrs. Murphy as vulnerable haverequired special counseling itu early adolescence. "It' would be ex- tremely convenienl"'itexperts could~profile a child's coping strengths and weaknesses early in life and count on them as being per, manent, Mrs. Murphy has written. "We could engrave2he information on an expand. able bracelet, tag him for life and save mil- llons of dollars on subsequent tests and ex- aminations" The Woodlawn Study - For other youngsters, elementary and ~ juttioi• high school experiences make them more vulherable toteeling distressed'during adolescence. Dr. Sheppard G. Kellam. a University of Chicago professor of psychia- try, has followed 705 youngsters in Wood- lawn, a black neighborhood of Chicago, since they entered first grade in 1966. He has found that the boys who flunked first grade or were loners, shy or slow learners tended to become heavy drinkers, delin- quent;,anxious and depressed as teen-agers. One young man had few friends and fought constantly with his friends in first grade. By age 16 he had been arrested for, shoplifting, could barely read and had trouble answering questions in school. ITAe story has a surprising,ending; The boywas given psychological tnunseling and was graduated from high school, on time, last spring. l Less-fortunate children who grow up in. ,Rhe slums and fail early In life "will con- tlnuee to.get Itt trouble with the.police and i drugs," Dr. Kellam says. Contrary to poPu- lar belief, he says, "these kids have a tre- mendous investrnena in making it in their community. When they don't, 1t isn't be- cause they don't care„It's a reaetion to the itress" of previous persona] failure. In predominantly white, more-affluent communities, adolescence can be a stressful time for certain vulnerable young people. Girls who enter puberty early and starUdat. t"are particularly vulnerable" to the ess of moving from elementary to junior- kigh scliool, says Roberta Simmons, a Uni, versity of Minnesota professor of sociology 'and psychiatry, who discovered this link arbile studying 9001 seventh graders in the Milwaukee area. These vulnerable girls, she says„ represented "a slgnificant minority."' ey suffered a loss of sel'f-esteem and dn't do as well in school as other pupilt. ,Mtlltiple Woes But even the well-adjusted: child runs a risk obbecorrung physically or mentally ill if e child is forced to adjust to a combination stressfulievents In one year~ researchers V are finding. For, example, the hospitalization of a parentl family economic reversals and minor scrapes witli the police, coming one after another, could trigger a serious de- pression. Tales of multiple fatnily woes are sometimes reported by youngsters with ap- pendicitis, asthma, pneumonia„arthritis and other ailments. The piling up of stressful life events may miso be related to youthful pregnancy, car < aecidents and drug dependency. Dr. R. Dean COddington, professor of ehild'psychiad try at Louisiana State University schoot of medicine and a leading authority on stress, compared pregnant teen-agers with those who weren'rt pregnant, both groups coming from the same socioeconomic backgrounds- Almost halb of the pregnant girls reported the death or hospitalization oCtwo or more family members in the previous year, com pared with one fifth of the girls who weren'r pregn ant. Extreme family disturbances can also lead to teen-aged boys' involvement in traL ~fic accidents• according to Dr. Raymond So "be1, a child psychiatrist in Hanover, F.H., who h'as made a study of 496 adoLescents.. "If the father jusrlost his job„the mother is having menopause and everyone is scream-. fng at'eacli other, the kid is at greater risk for having a car accident," he says. $imilarly; Mr. Duncan questioned 31 drug addicts aged 15 to 23 wAen,be was director -of the Houston halfwayhouse. He says that •most of the young people had'experienced •irnany life changes in the lear before they began using drugs. One gii•l, he reports, started using alco- hol, marijuana and depressant drugs during seventh grade after the marriage of an dderr sister. This was followed by the hospitai{za- tion of her mother, a move to a new home and her grandhather's moving in with the family. He says he advised theyoung people to try to string out the stressful events in ibeih lives-not to change jobs and apart, ments atthe same time; for example. Of the 10 who took his advice, only one returned to taking drugs, he says. - It does appear that by mastering stresss ful situations, children can, more easili• man- age future strains in their lives Twetve years ago a new first-grade teacher arrived~ at a public school in Woodlawn-,the Chicago neighborhood. Dr, Kellam reports that the students who had switched to the school af. ter kindergarten hadi less trouble coping with the arrival of the new teacher than thosee children wtn.hadn'.t.switched schools. "It was as if'they had grown more adapta ble by going through the prior stress," he says. , ~