Resilience in children and adolescents is considered the capacity to resist negative psychosocial consequences resulting from adverse events.
It is not the absence of psychopathology following a potentially traumatic event, but an active process which maintains personal stability in difficult circumstances over time.
It developed originally from interest in the prevalence and risk factors for psychosocial morbidity in children and young people and then onto protective factors which identify those whom seemed to be less vulnerable to adverse experiences.