Blog Week 4: Consequences of Stress on Children’s Development

Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

We have learned how we can observe children and we are learning how to better understand a child’s development and ways we can encourage healthy development. Until now we have not really looked at how stressors could affect a child’s development. The assignment asked to pick a "stressor" that either you or someone you know has experienced and ho w they coped with it.

The "stressor" I choose was abandonment. There is a girl I work with that has talked to me about her father and how he abandoned her as a young child. She said until about the age of 30 she never really thought about it or realized he may have something to do with her commitment issues.  She said she has always blocked it out and until she was trying to figure out why she was so afraid of committing to a man she realized it was her father. She remembers as a little girl packing her bags and standing by the door waiting on her father to pick her up. She said she would wait for hours looking out the door. Her father never showed up. He always told her that he was coming to see her, but he never showed. She said that she remembers feeling disappointed and sad. After about a year, she said that she realized he was not coming to see her. As the years went by she soon forgot about her father although she said some days she would think about him. Her father affected her biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial domains because she felt abandonment.  As an adult she blacked out anything to do with her father and that is why she has a commitment issue. She felt that all men would leave her.  At the age of 30 she began seeing a psychiatrist and wanted to seek help. That is when it all came out and she had a better understanding of why she was the way she was. She is now married and has a little boy. I think everyday children have a father or even a mother walk out on them. They may not realize at the time how hurtful this is for the child.

Hunger in Latin America is what I choose that I wanted to learn more about. 62 million people live in extreme poverty and suffer the consequences of hunger according to the World Food Program. More than 200,000 children in Latin America under the age of five years old die from malnutrition and water-borne diseases. When you are hungry the last thing on your mind is learning.  Chronic hunger and malnutrition can cause significant health problems.  Children that are malnourished do not get enough nutrients such as iron, vitamin A and zinc in their diets.  Vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness, iodine deficiency can cause mental retardation and delayed development. Iron deficiency in infancy can delay development and make older kids less active and less able to concentrate. All three domains are affected in a child’s development with hunger and malnutrition. Poverty, hunger, disease are not the only stressors in this country. Environmental pollution is another stressor. They have to worry if their water is clean that they are drinking out of and even in the houses they live in. Dirt, bugs and other pollutions are other problems that we in America may not have to worry about.  As a child worrying about theses stressors could affect their brain development as well as their social skills. They walk around in panic mode and are unable to play and live happy like a child should do!

http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/feeding/hunger.html#