These risk factors are real, but they are not excuses to throw up our hands and dismiss a child as a lost cause. There are interventions that work, even to reduce the impact of biological risk factors. There are sources of help and promise for children growing up under a cloud of accumulated risks. And there are programs that work to foster resilience. The traditional model of resilience, which stresses individual responsibility for successful outcomes, is not entirely wrong.
Individuals do have some responsibility for their own success in life.
What we want to stress here is that individuals are not alone. This facilitation of protective factors is not only important for children and youth who are at risk of poor social outcomes. It is also important for the adults who live with, work with, or otherwise support children and youth. A focus on resilience can help improve outcomes for these children and youth. The great danger I see in the idea of resilience is in expecting children to overcome deprivation and anger on their own.