“How Can You Deal With That?” Coping Strategies Among Young Residents of a Rural Community in New South Wales

Abstract

Rather than presume to understand the ways in which young people think about and effectively resolve their problems, it is important to learn from their successes. Therefore, exploration into young people’s perspectives can provide valuable insight into how young people have made the transition into adulthood, negotiated their way through difficult issues and circumstances, and understood their social environments. This paper explores the concept of coping through interviews with 30 young people in a small, rural community in New South Wales, Australia. Young people identified their problems and coping strategies, and talked about how they understood and resolved issues. Young people did not..