“Our ability to cope with life’s ups and downs”—this is how Cozolino (2014) defines resiliency (pg. 277). Cozolino (2014) explains that a person’s resiliency depends on their support system. Precious did not grow up with the best support system. Her mother and father are both very abusive. Her grandmother will not step in because she is scared of Precious’ mother. But that does not mean that Precious lacks the ability to be resilient. In fact, her new support system of Ms. Rain, Nurse John, and her classmates has a larger influence on her resiliency because they have more of a positive impact on her life. While the ACEs resiliency scale on acestoohigh.com focuses primarily on the parents, there are many other people that are in Precious’ life that …show more content…
A person can respond with anything from definitely true to definitely not true. There are statements such as “I believe that my mother loved me when I was little.” It seems Precious never felt loved by her mother; however, Ms. Rain loves her. We hear her say this in the movie when Precious shows misconceptions about what love is. Because Precious has someone in the motherly role that is showing her love, Ms. Rain is having a positive effect on Precious’ resiliency. Ms. Rain also plays an important part when it comes to other parts of the scale, such as “someone cared about how I was doing in school”, “…teachers, coaches, youth leaders or ministers were there to help me”, “when I felt really bad, I could almost always find someone I trusted to talk to”, and “as a youth, people noticed that I was capable and could get things done” (“Got Your Ace Score?”, n.d.). Her classmates act as Precious’ extended family, covering the questions concerning having someone to trust or go to when she is upset. Having people that are trustworthy and reliable in a person’s life certainly would make difficult life situations easier to