Stressors and the Effects on Child Development
There are many types of stressors
that can impact a child’s development and identity. From the list, (war,
poverty, racism, natural disaster, isolation, hunger, noise, chaos, disease,
environmental pollution, and violence) I chose to focus on isolation. I chose
isolation because of my grandma’s childhood. My grandmother and her siblings
were put into an orphanage when she was a young child. She is the youngest of
five and was separated from her siblings. This was very hard on my grandmother
and while trying to deal with her separation with shyness and sadness she was
isolated from others in the orphanage. Being isolated brought so much stress on
my grandmother it affected her in many ways. One story that breaks my heart is
her bed-wetting story. She was very stressed about the isolation from others
that she would wet the bed at night. When doing so she was abused by the adults
and made to change her own sheets in the middle of the night, crying. As she
grew older she knew she had to compensate for the isolation that was brought
upon by her shyness. She began breaking out of her shell and became very nice
and kind to everyone. She was eventually adopted and continued to be kind and compassionate.
To this day my grandmother is one of the nicest and giving people I know. Unfortunately,
my grandmother did not have a resources or support while her isolation took
place or while she was compensating for the isolation, she did it all on her
own. She is an amazing lady!
I chose the country Mexico to
research child stressors. I found that a big stressor for children living in
Mexico is poverty. “More than 20 million children and adolescents in Mexico are
estimated to live in poverty, and five million of them in extreme poverty” (UN
News Centre, 2013). Poverty impacts children by limiting resources available,
such as quality health care, nutritious food, adequate shelter, and education. “The
study highlights how child poverty is very damaging to the individuals and the
country overall. “When children live in poverty it can have an irreversible
impact on their development, and increases the probability of being passed on
to future generations,” UNICEF said in a news release” (UN News Centre, 2013). UNICEF
is an organization trying to help minimize the harm of poverty on children in
Mexico. “UNICEF is working to more fully understand how and where children are
experiencing poverty, to allow a more nuanced set of policy responses in
national mechanisms such as poverty-reduction strategies. UNICEF has various
on-going projects and tools related to child poverty measurement and
influencing policies and programming that address child poverty” (UNICEF,
2013).
References:
UN News Centre. (2013). The Majority of Poor in Mexico are
Children. Retrieved
UNICEF. (2013). Child Poverty and Social Protection.
Retrieved from
Staci,
ReplyDeleteI can hardly read what happened to your grandma without tearing up!!! That is so sad. She was a child. Alone. Scared. I know that resilience is great but the pain that children have to endure is so unfair. I appreciate those stories in that I learn something from the tragedy of others. This is both unfortunate yet good. I am sure she would appreciate me taking something positive from her experience. It seems inhumane that someone would do that to a child. Please hug her for me!!!!
Catherine
Staci,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear about your grandmother situation as a young child and yes she does sound like an amazing woman. Learning to adapt in a situation like that takes courage and logical thinking. You know I was once told that you can kill a person with kindness, so your grandmother being kind to these people helped her become adopted. I really enjoyed reading your blog and thanks for sharing the story of your grandmother.
Erica
Staci,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story about grandmother. What an emotional experience that must have been for her. She must be an incredible person to have overcome such abuse and still have kindness in her heart. What a courageous woman! I was also saddened by the statistics that you shared about the poverty in Mexico. It's astonishing to consider that there are 20 million children living in poverty. I enjoyed reading your post and thank you for the information.