The article addresses the issue of coping behavior and coping strategies of students at a pedagogical university. Models of coping with stress, coping tasks, coping strategies, and personal coping resources are defined. The main approaches to the study of coping behavior, classifications of coping behavior in the interpretation of domestic and foreign researchers are highlighted. The connection between the coping strategies of pedagogical university students and their value orientations, readiness for pedagogical activity, neuropsychological characteristics, self-attitude, and defensive mechanisms of the personality is traced. Empirically, the adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies inherent to students of a pedagogical university, their situational and personal anxiety, as well as the relationship between anxiety and the prevailing coping strategies of future special education teachers are revealed.

The article presents a theoretical review of scientific research describing coping with stress, and a study to test the method of Jim White and Mary Keenan — stress control. Stress research is currently important for both practical psychology and sports psychology. Stress control — a psychoeducative low intensity method, using group methods of work, — is proposed to be studied along with other forms of coping behavior used in practical psychology and sports psychology. The technology of stress control, its advantages, as well as the process and results of its approbation on athletes as part of the correction of anxiety are described.

The article is devoted to the study of the features of socio-psychological adaptation of parents of seriously ill children. In the course of an empirical study, features of the emotional response of parents to the action of acute stress of the message of the child’s diagnosis were revealed. Extreme, crisis situations imply intensive use of a large number of various resources. During the first period of acceptance of the child’s diagnosis, systemic changes occur in the lives of parents, which can cause a decrease or loss of their personal and labor potential. The features of socio-psychological adaptation and coping strategy of parents are studied. It is revealed that most parents have a low and extremely low level of socio-psychological adaptation, do not have internal reserves for independent control of the situation, choose ineffective coping strategies, pinning hopes on outside help. Without a special program of psychological and pedagogical assistance, parents of seriously ill children will not be able to provide adequate emotional support to their children. The necessity of creating a state program of assistance to this category of the population of the Russian Federation is proved.