Psigologiese weerbaarheid by kinders uit geskeide, hersaamgestelde en intakte gesinne

English: The object of this survey was to establish whether there are differences in resilience between children who respectively come from intact, divorced or reconstructed families. Resilience, as a new construct in the field of social sciences, was investigated. In the past, the focus was mainly on a pathogenic view of mankind. Resilience, on the other hand, is a fortigenie view focussing on strengths instead. Resilience firstly implies the positive handling of stress, secondly the overcoming intolerable occurrences and thirdly it enables the individual to 'develop beyond his present level of functioning, Protective factors contributing towards resilience include external support systems, internal strengths and social interpersonal abilities. To develop resilience, a child needs a support system. The family plays an important role in this. Happy and intact families hold many advantages for a child tremendously, with both parents sharing the responsibility and obligations with respect to the children. Both parents fuifiii the gender-role identities for the children and discipline has a consistent and consequent quality. An intact family provides a framework in which a child can develop and master necessary skills. An intact family contributes to a large degree towards the normal development of the child, but it must also be taken into consideration that the family can also act as the main contributor towards the problems that a child experiences. Divorce for instance can negatively impact on a child. The parent-child relationship is cardinal in the normal development of a child. Divorce negatively influences the quality of the parent-child relationship which is of cardinal importance and impacts largely on the child's inter and intra psychological functioning. Contextual factors, such as the age and gender of a child, as well as the adjustment of the parent after the divorce, and the availability of support systems play a major role in the child's adjustment. It takes approximately three years for an adult to adjust to a divorce and be ready for a new romantic relationship. Children, however, are subjected to the decisions of their parents, irrespective of whether or not emotional equilibrium has been reached. Children are expected to adjust to change for a second time, they may also experience feelings of loss, rejection and sorrow. Loyalty issues contribute greatly to the stress experienced by children in reconstructed -families. From this it becomes clear that stressors such as divorce or a stepparent family can greatly impact upon a child's general level of functioning and influence the child's resilience. Schools from five provinces, namely Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-West and the Free State were selected to partake in this study. The children in their middle childhood from all population groups were selected to form the research sample. The final survey group comprised 50 children from intact families; 53 children from divorced families and 36 children from reconstructed families. The resilience of the respective groups were compared with another. The data was statistically analyzed using a oneway MANOVA, after which a single factor analyses of variance was used to determine which of the dependant variables showed a significant difference with respect to their mean scores, and secondly, to establish which groups differ significantly with respect to their mean scores. The Scheffé-results showed that children from reconstructed families attained a higher mean score on the Piers-Harris sub scale 1-score (behavior), with reference to selfimage, than did children from divorced families. Results furthermore showed that children, who were exposed to divorce, attained a higher mean score pertaining to the Symptom Scale 10 (major depression and dysthymia) than did children from intact families. The results thus suggest that only marginal differences exist between the resilience of the three groups.