ABSTRACT
As you have seen in the previous chapters, child maltreatment is a serious prob-lem with signifi cant negative consequences across a wide variety of domains including physical and mental functioning. However, there are also individual differences in how children respond to maltreatment. The purpose of this chapter is to
examine children who suffer maltreatment and seem to escape the negative consequences. We talk of these children as being resilient. Resiliency is the ability to come through negative life events relatively unscathed or even to thrive in the face of adversity (Tugade, 2011). Throughout this chapter, I use the broader defi nition of resiliency, which refl ects the absence of negative consequences instead of the more restrictive defi nition that requires higher than normal or superior functioning after adversity (Afi fi & MacMillan, 2011; see Case Example 10.1 ). However, there certainly are cases in which some individuals who suffer child maltreatment do manage
to have extraordinary lives (see Case Examples 10.2 ). If we knew what allowed some children to be resilient, it might give us insight into how to serve other maltreated children in more effective ways. The fact that some children are resilient does not, in any way, negate the very real negative consequences of maltreatment for so many children. In addition, talk of resiliency does not lessen the fact that all child maltreatment is wrong.
