In an Indian city at a busy traffic signal, a child moves among the cars that have stopped to sell flowers or clean the windscreen glasses. Most of the drivers don’t look up. About three kilometres from there, at a railway station, another child looks for any leftover food, chooses the safest place to sleep and stays alert to all the strangers who pass by. While most children are concerned about their exams, their homework or arguments with their friends, these children are worried about getting a meal, staying out of violence and making it through the night.
However, many of them display real skill; they are able to solve problems, quickly understand people, make friends and find food and shelter in places which adults would find overwhelming. This leads to a question: how is it that these children are able to go on when the world around them continually puts them in danger? The answer is not easy. These children are not helpless victims, and they are not superheroes, either. Their resourcefulness exists together with hunger, fear and exploitation.
The term resilience is used by psychologists to describe the ability to keep adapting in the face of hardship, but it does not mean that the suffering has disappeared (Masten, 2001). In India, the rapid growth of cities has placed huge pressure on housing, employment and public services, and as a result, many children end up living or working on the streets. UNICEF India’s 2024 study of children in street situations illustrates just how vulnerable they are and shows why better responses are needed.
Not One Story, But Many
Researchers generally prefer using the term “street-connected children” rather than “street children”. The older expression reduces the child to the place where they sleep; the more recent one acknowledges that their situations are very different. There are some children who live on the streets or near railway stations and have only little or no connection with their families.
During the day, some people work at signals, sell small items, or collect recyclables before going home at night. People go back and forth between the street, shelters, their relatives’ homes, and institutions. A number of people have brought their families to the city and are having difficulty with a new language, a disrupted school routine, and the fact that it is a strange place. Such differences are important. A child who sells flowers after school and then returns home has to go through difficulties, but still maintains links with their family and continues with some education.
A child who has run away because of violence at home might end up with a deep fear and a lack of trust in adults. Even identical behaviour can have different meanings. For example, a child who refuses to go into a shelter may have been abused in a previous one. Alternatively, they may not want to be separated from their siblings or friends. Or it could be that they simply do not yet trust the shelter.
It is seldom just plain stubbornness. Jayaraj (2025) puts forward the same argument, stating that India needs a more flexible approach to these children, one that takes into account the different circumstances of their lives and their own choices. A study involving 73 street-connected children in Bombay showed that they constantly experienced stress regarding food, shelter, safety, work, and healthcare; it also revealed that friendships, personal resourcefulness, and assistance from NGOs actually made a difference (Kombarakaran, 2004).
Resilience: Strength That Comes From More Than the Child
It is tempting to believe that resilient children are just tougher than other children. Psychologists, however, have a different view. Resilience typically results from ordinary factors working in unison: the child’s own capabilities, the presence of people who care about them, opportunities to learn, and access to basic resources (Masten, 2001). Resilience is not merely something that a child has to discover within themselves; it is also something that can be developed by their environment or eroded by it.
In street situations, resilience might be shown by knowing where it is safe to sleep, spotting danger early, asking a reliable shopkeeper for assistance, or keeping a younger sibling close when among strangers. These are genuine skills and indicate learning and adaptation. Yet they do not prove that a child is doing well. A child who is always on guard is just being cautious, but staying alert all the time is tiring. A child who never cries in public has probably found out that crying brings trouble. Context is also a factor (Ungar, 2011).
Although refusing help from strangers might keep a child safe from being exploited at the moment, if that distrust extends to all adults, it may later prevent the child from going to school, seeing a doctor, or accessing rehabilitation services which could in fact be of real help. This is the main difference between merely surviving and actually thriving. Surviving involves constantly adapting to a dangerous world, while thriving requires a world that is safe enough for a child to relax, learn and grow.
How Children Cope Day to Day
Dealing with the problem involves taking steps to alter the situation. For example, a child could discover where free food is offered, get on well with a kind vendor, decide which drivers to avoid, or combine forces with other children to earn money. Such actions require memory, concentration, and sound judgement. Yet children must not be expected to handle dangers which adults and institutions are responsible for preventing.
How to cope with one’s emotions: When a situation cannot be altered, people seek out ways to feel better. Children may go to music, play, pray, have a conversation, or spend time with reliable friends. Humour is also helpful since sharing jokes and stories can provide a moment of relief. However, laughter does not mean that a child is okay. A child might laugh and take part in playing even if they are still hungry, anxious, or going through grief.
Children sometimes do not discuss unpleasant events since recalling them causes pain or because they are afraid of being punished or not being believed. In other cases, they describe awful experiences flatly and calmly. Such reactions may be ways of dealing with something extremely difficult. However, no one particular behaviour can be used as proof that a child has experienced trauma, and not all the ways of coping are healthy.
Speaking to a reliable adult can help to make a child feel safer and calmer. Although using substances or taking part in risky behaviour might provide some temporary relief from the pain, it can result in greater harm in the future. The Bombay study showed that a number of children coped in a constructive way, but some also resorted to harmful behaviour (Kombarakaran, 2004). Effective support involves understanding the purpose that a child’s behaviour serves and at the same time taking the risks associated with it seriously.
Friends as Family
Where reliable adults are not available, children usually turn to their friends. Children who live on the streets share food with one another, pass on information, keep each other company and support one another following a frightening experience. The friendships that develop help create a feeling of belonging and also teach children skills such as cooperation and negotiation.
However, there is a negative aspect to peer groups since older children may intimidate or bully the younger ones, and some groups may get their members involved in dangerous activities. Friends can act as both a source of safety and a source of risk, and they cannot take the place of the protection that adults have a duty to provide to children. That said, the research indicates that we should not regard these relationships merely as evidence of problems in the family. It is important that workers consider the way such relationships give children a sense of security while at the same time remaining alert to the dangers.
Trauma and the Need for Trust
For children to grow up properly, they need to have steady and caring relationships. The theory of attachment, which was first formulated by the psychiatrist John Bowlby in 1969/1982, explains that children who are consistently comforted learn to expect that help will be available to them when they need it; this early experience influences the way in which they trust other people in the future. In some cases, the relationships of children who end up on the streets have been disrupted by neglect, violence, migration or frequent moves. However, it is not possible to judge a child’s past from the place where they sleep, since many of them still maintain close links with their parents or relatives even though they are working on the streets.
That is the reason why interpretation is important. If a child avoids eye contact with an outreach worker, they may feel shy or tired, follow cultural norms, or have been hurt by past experiences. Labelling this behaviour as “defiance” could damage the trust the worker has built with the child. A worker who calmly introduces themselves, explains the kind of help available and allows the child to make up their own mind at their own speed creates an opportunity.
Because of living under a constant state of threat, there can be lasting effects. Some children become overhyped, jump at loud noises, have difficulty concentrating or are unable to relax in new environments. With others come withdrawal, irritability, emotional numbness, or poor sleep. Such effects are possible consequences of hardship and not something that applies to all children who are on the streets.
“Toxic stress” describes a situation in which the body’s stress response remains activated for an extended period, particularly when a caring adult is unavailable to provide support. This kind of stress can have an impact on a child’s developing brain and body (Shonkoff et al., 2012). However, not every child who experiences difficult circumstances will suffer lasting harm.
The outcomes depend on the severity and duration of the hardship as well as on whether there are protective relationships present. Therefore, we should not conclude that all children become traumatised. At the same time, we should not assume that a child who seems to be coping well has escaped harm. Instead, we should listen carefully and provide support.
The Hidden Cost of Constant Survival
If a child’s mind is occupied with thoughts about where they will sleep, hunger, and fear, there will be less room available for learning. The stress associated with poverty can have an impact on self-regulation (Blair & Raver, 2016). In other words, it can affect the ability to concentrate, control impulses, and adapt to changing demands. Suppose a child spends the night in an unsafe place and is then expected to sit through a class. They might fully understand the lesson. However, due to their exhaustion and anxiety, it will be difficult for them to concentrate. Teaching a hungry child to “relax” while they still have nowhere safe to sleep fixes only half the problem.
From Surviving to Receiving Support
True assistance begins with regard for the child as a separate individual with rights. The main concerns must be safety, access to food, healthcare, protection from exploitation, and education. Additionally, where appropriate, assistance should include contact with their family or community. The Child In Need Institute demonstrated how to put child rights principles into practice through its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bhattacharyya and Chakraborty (2024) highlight the importance of involving children in decisions about their lives rather than treating them as passive recipients of charitable support. At railway stations and traffic signals, outreach workers can provide initial assistance and identify any immediate dangers. Additionally, they can connect children with the relevant services. This kind of work must be based on respect, confidentiality, and the child’s best interests. Children are more likely to accept support when they understand what it involves. Additionally, they should be able to express their concerns regarding shelters, their families, or school.
It is very important to be consistent. A child who has experienced abandonment may need considerable time to develop trust in a new social worker. Slowness does not mean a lack of cooperation. Honesty, reliability, and respect for personal boundaries help build trust. Education can also serve as a vital support. By offering flexible classes, bridge courses, additional tutoring, and assistance with admission, children can go back to school. This allows them to continue their education without having to resolve all their problems at once.
Schools can contribute by abandoning labels that carry a stigma. Instead, they can show curiosity rather than resorting to punishment when dealing with a child’s learning difficulties. For an extremely distressed child, trained professionals can provide mental health care. This care should be appropriate to the child’s age, language, culture, and background. There is no one approach that will work for all children. Most importantly, resilience should never serve as an excuse to overlook or ignore the underlying problem. The goal is not to make children more skilled at enduring deprivation. It is to reduce deprivation itself.
Conclusion
Children who live near railway stations or work around traffic signals often display great practical ability. Additionally, they may have a good sense of social awareness and the capacity to learn from difficult experiences. The friendship bonds they form together with their resourcefulness enable them to cope with difficult days. However, these strengths should never lead others to underestimate the severity of the child’s circumstances. A child who has to find food by himself still needs to receive dependable meals. Even if a child can recognise danger, they still need protection from violence. Also, a child who appears tough still needs to have relationships in which it is possible to show fear and sadness without feeling ashamed.
The key lesson from psychology is that it is not acceptable for a child to have to depend entirely on their own resourcefulness to get through life. A caring society isn’t one in which children become good at enduring hardship. Rather, it is one that gets rid of the conditions that make such endurance necessary. For street-connected children in India, resilience ought to involve more than simply making it through another day at a station or a signal. Instead, it should include safety, access to schooling, a sense of belonging, and emotional well-being. Most importantly, it should ensure a childhood in which survival is no longer the primary responsibility.
References +
- Bhattacharyya, D., & Chakraborty, S. (2024). Building resilience of street-connected children during COVID-19: Turning rights into practices through CINI method. Frontiers in Public Health, 12, Article 1353867. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1353867
- Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2016). Poverty, stress, and brain development: New directions for prevention and intervention. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3 Suppl.), S30–S36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2016.01.010
- Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment (2nd ed.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1969)
- Jayaraj, K. P. (2025). ‘Street children’ in India: A new framework for research. Indian Journal of Social Work, 86(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/09737030251346753
- Kombarakaran, F. A. (2004). Street children of Bombay: Their stresses and strategies of coping. Children and Youth Services Review, 26(9), 853–871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2004.02.025
- Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.227
- Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Siegel, B. S., Dobbins, M. I., Earls, M. F., McGuinn, L., Pascoe, J., & Wood, D. L. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
- Ungar, M. (2011). The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01067.x
- UNICEF India. (2024). Study of children in street situations in India.
