Relationship between types of coping and everyday stress in preschoolers

Introduction
Trianes and Morales (2010) report that children show a differential use of coping strategies according to the problem or situation. Frydenberg, Deans and O’Brien (2012) conclude that not all responses are effective for all situations, given that children are building their coping repertoire, over time. However, there is little research in this subject with preschoolers, so the objective of this study was to know if there is a relationship between the different areas of daily stress in preschoolers (family, school, social and fantasies) and the coping styles (emotional, dysfunctional, avoidance and functional) they use.

Method
The materials used were the Daily Stress Scales (Monjarás y Lucio, 2018), and Coping for Preschoolers. One hundred and fifteen preschoolers participated and correlations were analyzed.

Results
There is a relationship between the different areas of daily stress and the emotional, dysfunctional and avoidance coping styles. No relationship was found between the different areas of daily stress and functional coping. Emotional and avoidance coping styles show the highest correlations with the different areas of daily stress. In accordance with Frydenberg (2017), coping styles cannot be classified universally as adaptive and maladaptive during the preschool years.