Abstract
The present study was to investigate the emotion and behavioral coping strategies in elementary school children, and the relationship between stress responses and social support. The survey about coping, and subjective symptoms and perceived social support were conducted with 712 (395 boys and 317 girls) upper level elementary school children. The results showed that: 1) Children frequently used emotional and behavioral coping strategies in stress situations. 2) Six coping strategies were found by factor analysis, i.e., problem solving, behavioral avoidance, distraction, seeking social support, cognitive avoidance, and emotional avoidance, 3) Children who frequently used behavioral avoidance showed the highest scores of stress responses, 4) Boys who chose emotional avoidance were easily tired and irritable. These results suggested that it is important for the health of school children to have emotional and behavioral coping strategies, and the approach / avoidance conceptualization of coping help to clarify the ways in which children cope. Finally, it is suggested that further research about the relationship with coping strategies and health in school children is necessary in order to develop stress management education.
