Abstract
Inventories of stressful situations (daily hassles and major events) and coping responses were developed from open-ended discussions about stress and coping conducted in Grades 4 and 7. Item content and format were designed to elicit a child's perception of the experienced stress rather than an adult's perception of the child's experience. Inventories showed strong content, concurrent, and construct validity. Testing across a 2-wk. interval showed strong reliability for the report of major events; items with weak reliability were eliminated. As expected, reliability for hassles occurring during different weeks was weaker, in particular for Grade 4 children. The relation between experienced stress in an individual situation and total stress was stronger for daily hassles than major events. The choices of coping response by children in both grades showed high reliability.
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