Resilient Families Help Make Resilient Children

Abstract

Family practitioners recognize that children can be resilient despite dysfunctional families, and studies of childhood resilience have found that individual, family, and community protective factors are associated with children's positive outcomes despite significant risk (Condly, 2006; Werner & Smith, 2001). However, it can be challenging to recognize family strengths when there is significant family dysfunction (Sousa, Ribeiro, & Rodrigues, 2007). In addition, when dysfunctional families are seen as a risk factor for children, treatment may focus on enhancing individual and community protective factors while possibly losing beneficial aspects of family identity and support. Family resilience research suggests that families can be resilient despite dysfunction and that family resilience influences positive outcomes for children (Amatea, Smith-Adcock, & Villares, 2006; Mackay, 2003). Thus, intervention that identifies and enhances family resilience can potentially help both children and their families. This paper shows how resilience concepts explain children's and families' ability to grow and adapt. It describes how family resilience influences children's resilience and presents a framework for resiliencebased family treatment that enhances resilience in families and children. A brief case example of a struggling family illustrates how this treatment framework utilizes family, community, and individual protective factors to enhance family and child resilience.