Stress on Children's Development

The only stressful situation I can think of was a family in New York that experienced a terrible tragedy.  I was about 10 years old at the time when a young girl committed suicide by jumping from the 16^th floor of a friend’s apartment.  Her brothers were 6 and 8 and were friends with my younger brothers.  What made this so traumatic is her body was found near the playground and her brothers saw her lifeless body lying there.  This incident caused stress and trauma not only to her brothers, but to most of the children in the playground.  My mother took the three of us to counseling at our pediatrician’s office.  I had terrible nightmares for several weeks.   My mother suggested to this young girl’s mother that she might consider counseling for her boys and referred her to our pediatrician.  The community reached out to the family in many ways to help them get through their loss.   About  a year later the family moved away, but her brothers never seemed the same after this tragedy.

I read an article about a five year old girl named Marjan she and her aunt who is 10 years old spend their days collecting trash in the community.   The trash that they collect is used as fuel for cooking and heating.  Marjan’s family is poor.  She lives in Kabul Afghanistan where it has been said “it is the worst place in the world to be a child”.  One in five children do not live past five years old.  Many children die from hypothermia.  Many children are forced on the streets due to poverty.  Marjan little brother died from a cold.   Due to the effects of extreme poverty young children are deprived of their most basic needs, decent food, health, immunization and protection.  Many are exposed to the extreme cold of the winters in Afghanistan.    Many of these children will suffer from impaired brain development due to the malnutrition and lack of stimuli/interaction from their parents.   The only organization I was able to find that is working on combating the problem of Poverty in Afghanistan is Save the Children.

 Poverty can present many risk factors:  Inadequate nutrition, substance abuse, maternal depression, exposure to environmental toxins, trauma/abuse, and inadequate daily care of children.    Parental stress particularly impacts upon the developing child disrupting the neuron pathways of a child’s developing brain.  This can cause long term problems, such as learning disabilities, behavior, physical and mental health.  Studies have shown that children raised in poverty have poor academic achievement, are less likely to attend college, are more likely to become a teen parent, are more likely to smoke and use illegal drugs, are more likely to be unemployed.    One intervention for children of poverty is high-quality child care environment.

References:

Damon, Arwa (2008).  Child Scavenges for family's survival in Afghanistan.  Cable News Network retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2011/World/asiapcf/01/04/afghanistan.child.trash.scavenger

Policy Brief (2009).  The impact of poverty on early childhood development.  retrieved from http://www.rch.av/emplibrary/ccch/pb14_impact_poverty_ecd.pdf

NCCP (June, 1999).  Poverty and Brain Development in Early Childhood retrieved from http://nccp.org/publication/pub_398.html