Gender and Age Differences in How Children Cope with Daily Stress

Introduction. The study of coping among students accounts for an interesting subject, as having coping skills guarantees a healthy lifestyle and quality of life. The present study aims to analyze the role played by age and gender on the coping strategies used by Andalusian school students to cope with situations of daily stress. These situations have been extracted from four areas in children's daily life: family, health, school and peer interaction. Method. Participants were 402 students aged 9 to 12 years-old. Coping strategies were measured with the Childhood Coping Scale. This instrument comprises 35 self-report items that assess nine different coping strategies, distinguishing between problem-focused and nonproductive coping. Results. Results show that girls scored higher on the coping strategies: "active solution," "telling the problem to someone else," "information and guide seeking" and "positive attitude" (problem-focused coping); whereas boys scored higher on "aggressive behaviour" (unproductive coping). As for the age factor, the youngest girls and boys show "keeping the problem to oneself" more frequently. Discussion and Conclusion. The present study sets out to prove the relevance of age and gender in the study of children's coping in daily situations, which has got direct implications on the assessment and psycho-educational intervention on the area of stress and coping.