MODELS OF TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND CHILDRENS PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT - THE ROLES OF PERCEIVED PARENTING AND THE CHILDRENS OWN RESOURCES AND ACTIVITY

The relations between traumatic events, perceived parenting styles, ch ildren's resources, political activity, and psychological adjustment w ere examined among 108 Palestinian boys and girls of 11-12 years of ag e. The results showed that exposure to traumatic events increased psyc hological adjustment problems directly and via 2 mediating paths. Firs t, the more traumatic events children had experienced, the more negati ve parenting they experienced. And, the poorer they perceived parentin g, the more they suffered from high neuroticism and low self-esteem. S econd, the more traumatic events children had experienced, the more po litical activity they showed, and the more active they were, the more they suffered from psychological adjustment problems. Good perceived p arenting protected children's psychological adjustment by making them less vulnerable in two ways. First, traumatic events decreased their i ntellectual, creative, and cognitive resources, and a lack of resource s predicted many psychological adjustment problems in a model excludin g perceived parenting. Second, political activity increased psychologi cal adjustment problems in the same model, but not in the model includ ing good parenting.