I don't know what it is about October, but every year around this time my interest in movies grows to become something about which I am absolutely incapable of staying quiet. That's not to say I don't love movies the other 11 months of the year. I do. I watch them constantly (Though not as constantly as some of my more film career-minded friends. I once knew someone who claimed to have watched over 360 movies in one year. He went on to get an advanced degree in film studies from a rather prestigious university.) and I think it's fair to say that the majority of my everyday conversations focus on movies.

The movies and shows I've seen this month have begun to make me think quite a bit about the portrayal of adolescence in film, and whether or not that portrayal is truthful. In particular, I'm referring to The Witch (after a young Puritan girl and her family are banished from town and forced to build a homestead in the woods, their youngest child disappears), Stranger Things (a young boy goes missing at the same time that a young girl appears. The boy's friends team up with the girl to investigate his disappearance.), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (an adolescent boy ends up on the run in the New Zealand bush with his new foster father.). They are all fantastic and I recommend them to anyone who enjoys movies. They are also all different genres - horror, adventure/mystery/horror, and comedy respectively.

No spoilers ahead!

The concept that links these three different pieces of media together is that they all focus on children who have been exposed to extreme stress. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't specify what kind of stress, but I will say that they are rather extreme stressors. In any case, it is the response to stress that I find interesting. In all three cases, the children react in a way that not only brings them closer to those important to them, but also helps them to face additional stress - a concept known in public health as resilience.

I wanted to know what data there was detailing childhood response to stress, so I decided to do a short literature search. Now, maybe I'm not that good at doing psychological literature searches (I've never had to do one before) but I found very little data on this. Most of the articles I found were based on studies on childhood stress during or after a particular event (chronic pain, sexual abuse, living through a natural disaster) or focused on a particular stress response (suicidal ideation, paranoia, eating disorder). These studies also looked at an individual child's responses and perceptions rather than on interpersonal relationships. 

I did find an abstract, though not the full paper, on the social buffering provided by friends in childhood and adolescence, which found that friends do not provide social buffering until the mid-teenage years (15-16 years old).¹ I also found a study on 3-5 year-old children in daycare facilities, which found that children who were socially rejected had higher levels of salivary cortisol.2 However, I did not find a paper on the effect of childhood stress on interpersonal relationships, which is what I was looking for. A Google search was a bit more helpful for this. A very short informational article published by the American Psychological Association briefly mentioned that parents should "be aware" of how their children and teenagers interact with others but did not mention specific behaviors or activities that parents should watch out for.3 Another short article on MedlinePlus mentioned that stressed children may be unwilling to participate in social activities, and may exhibit aggressive or stubborn behavior.4

This leaves me to draw one of two conclusions. Either 1) I am bad at psychological literature searches, or 2) There is little known on the "normal" interpersonal relationship response to stress in children. I would surmise that depending on temperament, children likely have different responses to stress and relationships.

So, with my lack of scientific evidence of childhood response to stress, I instead decided to look to these artworks as examples. It should be remembered that they are works of art, and therefore are subjective interpretations of the world as seen by the artists, but I also believe that these particular works of art have a definite element of truth to them. 

One in particular, the Netflix series Stranger Things, is incredibly reminiscent of - and admittedly inspired by - the films of Steven Spielberg, who is so well-known for the truth of his depictions of children that there is at least one book written entirely about how he tells the stories of children.5 One notable review for his film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial described it as "so deep into the special alertness, loyalty, and ardor of children that it makes you see things you had forgotten or blotted out and feel things you were embarrassed to feel".6  Stranger Things shows children and adolescents forging stronger relationships not only in spite of stressful events, but I would suggest because of these events. Without the stressors, I doubt that some of the characters would even come into contact at all, much less become friends.

The other works, The Witch and Hunt for the Wilderpeople are incredibly different. One is the most terrifying movie I have ever seen (I cried and then didn't sleep for a day, then had to sleep with the lights on for a week.) and the other is hilarious and heartwarming. However, I think both show believable changes to family relationships in the face of a traumatic event. It's a bit more difficult to talk about these works without spoiling the plot, but I will say that the differences in family structure show the differing roles that family members may need to play to protect children from harm. Though I believe the protagonists might be of similar age (I'm not quite sure how old Thomasin in The Witch is supposed to be) they differ in terms of gender, relationship to caregivers, and reaction to family members under times of stress. 

All the works mentioned in this post show the importance of support systems for children, especially in the wake of trauma. I would suggest that whether or not children have strong social relationships can affect their resilience. One review article related the importance of social support in resilience across a number of population types.7 Even when only comparing these artworks and considering the differences in social support available to the children in them along with the fates of these children by the ends of their respective films/series, it would seem that social support played a critical role in their successes or failures. 

These three examples of art depicting children in stressful, often life-threatening situations seem to me to be truthful to the childhood experience. Watching them, I believe wholeheartedly that these children on screen are reacting in a way that real children would react in a similar situation, given that those children have similar environments and personalities. Truth is, I believe, one of the most important aspects of good art, and I would absolutely argue in defense of the truthfulness of these artworks in regards to childhood and social relationships.

(There may be spoilers in some of these references!)
1. Doom JR, Doyle CM, Gunnar MR. "Social stress buffering by friends in childhood and adolescence: Effects on HPA and oxytocin activity." Social Neuroscience. 2016 Feb 25:1-14. [Epub ahead of print]
2. Gunnar MR, Sebanc AM, Tout K, et al. "Peer Rejection, Temperament, and Cortisol Activity in Preschoolers". Developmental Psychobiology. 43.4 (2003):346-368.
3. American Psychological Association. "Identifying signs of stress in your children and teens". Accessed 21 Oct 2016. http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress-children.aspx
4. "Stress in childhood" Accessed 21 Oct 2016. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002059.htm
5. Schober, Adrian and Debbie Olson, editors. Children in the Films of Steven Spielberg. Lexington Books, 2016.
6. Denby, David. "The Visionary Gleam." New York Magazine, 14 Jun 1982, pp. 73-75.
7. Ozbay, F, Johnson DC, Dimoulas E, Morgan CA, Cherney D, Southwick S. "Social Support and Resilience to Stress: From Neurobiology to Clinical Practice." Psychiatry (Edgmont). 2007;4(5):35-40.