he potential these former child sol- diers have to go on and lead productive lives is often overlooked. The trauma that these children have experienced has them, but what matters more in their lives is how to continue to survive at home.

According to the Society for Research in Child Develop- ment, “one of the most impressive phenomena of child development is the ability of many children to develop into healthy, well- adapted adults despite adversity and trauma.”

The article says that research on this ability to thrive in spite of tremendous trau- ma is still relatively new and overshadowed by the research on what psychopathology may be present in the children due to that trauma.

One article in the International Review of Psychiatry by Theresa Stichick Betancourt & Kashif Tanveer Khan says that researchers’ “focus on trauma alone has resulted in inadequate attention to factors associated with resilient mental health outcomes” and that more attention should be paid to children’s ability to overcome that trauma through certain factors that increase resilience.

Research indicates that those posi- tive factors include “coping and meaning making at the individual level; the role of attachment relationships, caregiver health, resources and connection in the family, and social support available in peer and extended social networks,” according to Betancourt  and Khan.

The potential for resilience in these children exists, and can be looked at as a hopeful possibility for reintegration in the future.

“There is a pressing need to examine predictors of resilience in war-affected children across all layers of the social ecology,” say Betancourt and Khan.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers published a report in which 116 former child soldiers from the Teso Region in Uganda gave their views on reintegration and coming home. That report recognizes the complexity of the psychological issues that may face a returning child soldier.

“The mixed outcome [of the research] — resilient while remaining distressed by their experiences – illustrates the complex- ity of their situations and underlines the need to avoid characterizing war-affected children solely according to one dimen- sion, as either traumatized or resilient,” the report said.

These children are more than sta- tistics; they are complicated and can be helped, but more needs to be done. As more research surfaces on the resilience of the children in the face of adversity, the importance of a cultural perspective is becoming obvious.

“The understanding and treatment of mental illness has to be grounded in cultural context because culture so heavily shapes and defines our sense of identity and how we deal with adversity,” said Robinson, the children’s rights advocate.