Children's resilience, emotion regulation, social competence, and problem behaviors in an at-risk community in Turkey

Abstract

The first ain1 of the study was to have data about problen1 behaviors of children who live in an at-risk comtnunity and a deprived environtnent in Eastern Turkey. Another ain1 was to have data about children's resilience, ctnotion regulation, social cotnpetence level and traun1atic experiences. The last ain1 of the study was to see if there was a relationship between children's probletn areas, resilience, emotion regulation and social competence and children's trautnatic experiences. Ninety-five children living in an Eastern city of Turkey participated in the study. The results showed that children who were more negatively affected from trautna, which was related to violence exposure, had higher levels of etnotional syn1pto1ns, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer probletns, anger aggression, anxiety withdrawal and etnotion lability/negativity problen1s. The study also found that children who had better etnotional ties and support frotn their parents, hence considered resilient, had lower etnotion lability/negativity and anger aggression probletns. The study found significant positive correlations between etnotional syn1ptoms, conduct probletns, hyperactivity, peer probletns, anger aggression and etnotion lability/negativity. The study showed significant positive correlation between prosocial cotnpetence, social cotnpetence and etnotion regulation. Finally, the study found significant negative relationships between probletn areas and cotnpetence areas of children. The study contributed to the literature by assessing children's problen1 behaviors, tratunatic experiences related to violence exposure and resilience, etnotion regulation, social cotnpetence level in an at-risk con1tnunity in eastern Turkey.