"Family Resilience And Connection Promote Flourishing Among US Children, Even Amid Adversity"

"Approximately 40 percent of school-age children in the US meet criteria for flourishing, as operationalized by an index derived from three items designed to assess flourishing in the National Survey of Children’s Health. With only four in ten US children meeting flourishing criteria, populationwide approaches to promoting attributes of flourishing are suggested, even as targeted efforts address the needs of children exposed to adversity. The promising news is that the prevalence of flourishing was associated in a graded fashion with greater levels of family resilience and connection, and the strength of this association was similar across groups of children defined by varying levels of adversity—as measured by exposure to ACEs, household income as a percentage of the federal poverty level, and the presence of special health care needs. The especially strong association between flourishing and the parent-child connection component of the family resilience and connection index score is consistent with the science showing the primacy of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships to optimal child development. Such relationships are advanced through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Essentials for Childhood framework18 and the national Bright Futures Guidelines.16 Across the US, efforts are emerging to identify the concrete approaches and resources required to improve resilience and connection within families.47–50 Many of these strategies, such as those advanced in the Institute of Medicine report on family-focused interventions,47 focus on families as the key social unit for increasing child flourishing and mitigating the negative effects of adversities. These strategies also emphasize the broader social factors that influence family resilience and connection by including family supports related to housing, jobs, transportation, neighborhood safety, social support, and access to resources."