The relations between traumatic events, perceived parenting styles, children's resources, political activity and psychological adjustment were examined among 108 Palestinian boys and girls of 11 to 12 years of age. The results showed that exposure to traumatic events increased psychological adjustment problems, both directly and via two mediating paths. First, the more traumatic events children had experienced, the more negatively they perceived their parenting; and the poorer they perceived parenting, the more they suffered from high neuroticism and low self-esteem. Second, the more traumatic events children had experienced, the more political activity they showed; the more active they were, the more they suffered from psychological adjustment problems.

The perception of good parenting protected children's psychological adjustment by making them less vulnerable in two ways. First, traumatic events decreased their intellectual, creative, and cognitive resources, while in a model excluding perceived parenting a lack of resources caused many psychological adjustment problems; second, political activity increased psychological adjustment problems in the same model, but not in the model including perceived parenting.