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Children
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Stress and Stress Resilience in Children and Adolescents: 2nd Edition
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Stress and Stress Resilience in Children and Adolescents: 2nd Edition

A special issue of Children (ISSN 2227-9067). This special issue belongs to the section "Pediatric Mental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2025) | Viewed by 382

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Eva Möhler

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Saarland University Medical Center, Homburg, Germany
Interests: early life stress; stress resilience; child protection; child development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a second edition of the Special Issue titled “Stress and stress resilience in Children and Adolescents”.

Numerous studies have highlighted the tremendous impact of stress on children's brains, development and behaviors. Since 2020, children and adolescents have been exposed to stressors such as the war in Europe and lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results are considerable increases in mental health disorders and psychosocial disintegration.

Strategies to boost stress resilience in children and adolescents are a vastly understudied subject; this Special Issue will therefore focus on this area of research, including possible pathways linking early-life stress and development, such as stress-induced endocrine or neurobiological mechanisms and gene–environment interactions.

Since recent studies have described stress as negatively impacting executive functioning, research on this topic, as well as the underlying neural mechanisms, will be welcome in this Special Issue. Furthermore, reports on prevention strategies such as low-threshold treatment programs or school-based training approaches that aim to support children in several resilience factors, such as emotional regulation and self- and impulse control, are invited.

This Special Issue invites researchers working on the topic of early-life stress and stress resilience to share their work related to the risk factors and longitudinal consequences of all different forms of stress in early life. A focus on prevention and intervention will be highly welcomed, as will research targeting neurobiological and psychophysiological sequelae of stress in childhood. Other topics of specific interest are potential stressors with regard to parent–child interactions.

Prof. Dr. Eva Möhler
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • early-life stress
  • stress resilience
  • adverse childhood experiences
  • child mental health
  • developmental trauma

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 738 KiB  
Article
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Emotional Health of Children Under 6 Years in Washington, DC
by Tom Kariyil, Miranda Gabriel, Kavya Sanghavi and Elizabeth M. Chawla
Children 2025, 12(8), 981; https://doi.org/10.3390/children12080981 - 26 Jul 2025
Viewed by 100
Abstract
Background/Objective: A growing body of international research continues to show evidence of worsening youth mental health since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, yet very little research in this area has included young children under 6 years. Given the potential impact of [...] Read more.
Background/Objective: A growing body of international research continues to show evidence of worsening youth mental health since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, yet very little research in this area has included young children under 6 years. Given the potential impact of early life stress during this critical period of development, it is crucial to better understand the effects on this age group. The objective of this study was to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emotional health of very young children. Methods: This study utilized retrospective chart review of primary care records to compare the prevalence of markers of stress in two cohorts of children under the age of 6 years, comparing children presenting for care prior to the pandemic (1 April 2019–31 March 2020; control period) with those presenting for care during the first year of the pandemic (1 April 2020–31 March 2021; study period) in a large pediatric primary care clinic in Washington, DC, USA. Based on power calculations, charts of 200 patients from each cohort were reviewed and prevalence of stress markers were summarized using counts and percentages and compared between groups using chi-squared tests. Multivariable logistic regression models were also conducted for each domain adjusting for age, gender, and insurance type. Results: Overall, sleep difficulties were significantly more prevalent during the pandemic period compared to the control period (14% vs. 6.5%, p = 0.013). In addition, signs of stress presented differently across age groups. For example, during the pandemic period toddlers (13–35 months) were 13 times more likely (OR = 13, 95% CI [2.82, 60.4], p < 0.001) and preschool-aged children (36–71 months) were 18.5 times more likely (OR = 18.5, 95% CI [4.0, 86], p < 0.001) than infants to present with behavior problems, indicating substantially higher risk of externalizing symptoms in older children compared to infants. Toddlers were less likely than infants to present with mood changes (e.g., fussiness or crying) (OR = 0.15, 95% CI [0.03, 0.65], p = 0.011). In addition, toddlers (OR = 0.55, 95% CI [0.31, 0.97], p = 0.038) and preschool-aged children (OR = 0.15, 95% CI [0.06, 0.4], p < 0.001) were also less likely to present with feeding difficulties compared to infants. Conclusions: One of the very few studies of young children under 6 years (including infants) during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study found that even very young children experienced stress during the pandemic. Signs of emotional stress were identified in a primary care office during routine care, highlighting an important opportunity for early intervention and/or prevention, such as counseling and resources for caregivers, in settings where young children are already presenting for routine care. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Stress and Stress Resilience in Children and Adolescents: 2nd Edition)
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