Resilience to Interpersonal Stress: Why Mattering Matters When Building the Foundation of Mentally Healthy Schools

Abstract

The current chapter is about the role of interpersonal factors and processes in the mental health problems of children and adolescents. It is dedicated to those caring adults who make a critical difference in young people’s lives. It is now generally accepted that one of the most potent factors in the development of resilience among children and adolescents is having close and ongoing contact and interaction with a caring adult. Of course, for many young people, these caring adults are the teachers at school who have taken a special interest in them. The central premise of this chapter is that interpersonal vulnerability factors play a key and debilitating role in potentiating various forms of psychological distress among young people, but in keeping with the role played by caring adults, interpersonal factors and processes such as developing feelings of mattering to others can also protect children and adolescents.