Abstract

Since Weiss(1974) and Cobb(1976), many studies on social support have shown that social support influences an individual's mental health and personal adjustment, and involves the broad protective functions provided by social relationship from members of the social network. As children are undergoing the physical, emotional, social and other processes of development, they may be more vulnerable to the various stressful life events. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to review recent research on children's social support network, especially, the characteristics and development of children's social network and the stress-buffering effects of social support on children's psychological adjustment. The implications of previous findings on children's social network are discussed in relation to adjustment of and intervention process for children.