Iranian refugees in Sweden - Coping processes in children and their families

Three-and-a-half years after arriving in Sweden, when they had received per manent residence and settled, 39 Iranian children and their parents took pa rt in a study to investigate coping strategies. Both children and parents u sed a variety of coping modes, addressing different topics, such as previou s traumatic experiences, loss of social network and acculturative adjustmen t. Examples of children's narratives are given to illustrate how they coped with adaptive challenges in exile. Parents generally described problem-foc used coping, such as moving to better living areas, while children mostly d escribed emotion-focused coping, such as positive thinking and daydreaming. Parents deliberately facilitated or discouraged different coping strategie s in their children and were also greatly influenced by their children's su ccess or failure in coping.