Building Psychological Capital in Children and Adolescents: A Public Health Framework for Life Skills, Emotional Intelligence, and Resilience

Children and adolescents are growing up in an era shaped by rapid social change, academic pressure, social inequality, and rising mental health concerns. While considerable research has focused on identifying risk factors and mental health disorders in young people, comparatively less attention has been paid to strengthening the psychological resources that enable children and adolescents to adapt, flourish, and maintain lifelong health and well-being. Public health is increasingly recognizing the need to move beyond disease prevention toward building protective capacities that promote resilience, healthy development, and positive life outcomes. Life skills education, emotional intelligence, and social and emotional learning have each developed as important research areas in their own right, but they are often studied independently, limiting our understanding of how they jointly support healthy development.The goal of this Research Topic is to advance a strengths-based public health approach that promotes the development of Psychological Capital among children and adolescents by integrating life skills, emotional intelligence, and social and emotional competencies. Current research predominantly focuses on mental illness, behavioral problems, and health risks after they emerge. There is an urgent need to identify evidence-based strategies that proactively strengthen children’s psychological resources before significant health and social challenges develop. This Research Topic seeks to bring together multidisciplinary evidence on interventions, educational programs, and implementation strategies that foster resilience, self-regulation, empathy, and healthy decision-making in children and adolescents. Ultimately, the collection aims to support researchers, educators, healthcare professionals, and policymakers in developing public health systems that empower children and adolescents to achieve lifelong health, well-being, and social participation.This Research Topic welcomes original research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews, randomized controlled trials, implementation studies, mixed-methods research, qualitative studies, methodological papers, policy analysis, and perspective articles. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:o Life skills interventionso Emotional intelligenceo Social and emotional competencieso Psychological capitalo Resilienceo Self-regulationo Positive youth developmento School-based health promotiono Family and community interventionso Health equityo Implementation scienceo Youth empowermento Vulnerable populationso Public health policies that strengthen children’s psychological resourcesContributions from multidisciplinary teams and studies conducted across diverse cultural, educational, and healthcare settings are particularly encouraged. Topic editors: Pramila Thapa, PhD, Dr. Kishor Adhikari Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84901/building-psychological-capital-in-children-and-adolescents-a-public-health-framework-for-life-skills-emotional-intelligence-and-resilience