Resilience Sat Opposite Anxiety, But Nobody Watched It Move

What the research found

During a COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, a single researcher surveyed 199 gifted children in Ankara, Turkey. All had IQ scores above 130 and attended pull-out enrichment centres. They ranged in age from 8 to 13, with an average age of just under 10. Slightly more than half were girls. The study asked a narrow question: among gifted children, does resilience protect against anxiety, and do physical activity and digital gaming matter?

The headline result is a strong negative link between resilience and anxiety. Children who scored higher on resilience reported lower anxiety, with a standardised coefficient of −0.59 (p less than .001). Across the whole sample, resilience accounted for 38 per cent of the differences in anxiety scores. The relationship was even tighter among boys, where resilience explained 45 per cent of the variation, compared with 34 per cent among girls. In plain terms, resilience and anxiety moved in opposite directions, and they did so firmly.

Resilience here was measured with the Brief Resilience Scale, six items agreeing or disagreeing with statements such as “I tend to bounce back quickly after hard times.” Anxiety was measured with Spielberger’s State Anxiety Inventory, 20 items scored from 20 to 80. Both scales performed reliably in this sample. The average anxiety score was 35.3 out of 80, and the average resilience score was 21.6 out of 30. Boys and girls scored similarly on both, with no dramatic gender gap in the raw numbers.

The two secondary findings are more modest, and worth stating carefully. Physical activity predicted lower anxiety, but only among boys (−0.16, p less than .001), not girls, and not in the sample as a whole. Digital gaming predicted nothing. It did not raise or lower anxiety for either boys or girls once other factors were accounted for. Boys who gamed did show somewhat higher anxiety and lower resilience on average, but that pattern dissolved in the statistical model. So the study offers no support for the popular worry that gaming drives childhood anxiety, at least not in this group.

One point deserves emphasis because it is easy to miss. This study did not compare gifted children with typical children. Every participant was gifted. So the paper cannot tell you whether gifted children are more anxious, less anxious, or no different from their peers. Its title poses that question, but its design cannot answer it. What it establishes is a pattern within a gifted group, not a contrast between groups.

What it means for you and your child

The honest summary is that resilience and low anxiety travel together in gifted children. That is genuinely useful to know, and it fits a large body of wider research. But this study was taken at a single moment in time. It photographed the two traits side by side; it did not film them over months. So it cannot tell us whether resilience shields a child from anxiety, whether low anxiety leaves room for resilience to grow, or whether some third factor, such as a stable home or a supportive school, quietly shapes both. The author is candid about this. She writes that the cross-sectional design “limits the arrival at a causal inference.” We should take her at her word.

That caution matters practically. It would be a mistake to read this and conclude that if you build resilience, anxiety will fall. The study cannot promise that. What it can tell you is that resilience is a reasonable thing to attend to, because in gifted children it sits so closely alongside calm. Programmes that help a child recover from setbacks, tolerate difficulty, and steady themselves after a hard week are worth encouraging on their own terms. This research is consistent with their value; it does not prove it single-handedly.

On physical activity, be measured. The benefit here appeared only in boys, and it was small. That does not mean movement is useless for girls; it means this particular study, with this particular sample, did not detect an effect. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Exercise remains sensible for every child for reasons that reach well beyond one survey in Ankara. Treat the gender split as a question for future research, not a rule for your household.

On gaming, the finding is quietly reassuring, and also limited. The study found no link between playing digital games and anxiety. But it measured gaming crudely, as a simple yes or no, with no record of how long children played, what they played, or whether any child played to excess. The author names this as a weakness. So the result should calm a reflexive fear that games cause anxiety, without licensing the opposite belief that quantity never matters. On the question of heavy use, this study is simply silent.

Finally, hold the whole thing in proportion. This is one study, of 199 children, in one city, during one unusual period, with roughly half of those invited choosing to take part. Gifted children who were identified and enrolled in enrichment centres may differ from gifted children who were not. There was no comparison group. None of this makes the research poor; the numbers are clear and the reporting is careful. It makes it a single, well-conducted brick, not a wall. For a parent, the reasonable takeaway is calm rather than alarm: in gifted children, resilience and a settled mind keep close company, and that is a good reason to nurture the first while watching gently over the second.