The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of children's effortful control on the relationship between childhood physical abuse experience and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Data was obtained from 1,197 elementary school students belonging to 5th and 6th-grade who met specific criteria for physical abuse among total 2,516 students. The result indicated that physical abuse influenced negatively effortful control and effortful control influenced negatively posttraumatic stress symptoms. The effortful control mediated the association between childhood physical abuse experience between posttraumatic stress symptoms.