Poverty Affecting Children's Development

Educators and caregivers must understand that children come from diverse backgrounds. Children who live in poverty or low-income families face many challenges. When a child is from a low-income family, you must know and understand the obstacles the child and their families may face. There are many ways living in poverty can affect children and families; educationally, physically, and emotionally, cognitively, and socially. There are resources available and beneficial information to encourage and benefit families who live in poverty or low-income families.

Grace Abbott once said, “Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.” Child poverty is one of the biggest issues facing Canadian children today. Child poverty can significantly shorten a child’s life. One of the major reasons child poverty in Canada is so high is because of low wages. These children have a disadvantage to all the other children in Canada. There is major inequality among these children. There are many problems that come out of child poverty and effect the children directly. This paper will talk about the four major effects of child poverty; health issues and nutrition, emotional and behavioural issues, education, and their home environment. (Introduction: dimensions of children’s inequality, 2003).

A family’s class background can have a huge effect on child-rearing. The way a family raises a child can be dependent on the class background that they have. Often families with a substantial amount of money are able to provide their children with more opportunities than families with lower income. This can have a tremendous effect on how the child is raised and how much help/support a child can get from their families to become successful and educated. Families with different financial backgrounds tend to raise their children differently and have different values in regards to schooling. In Annette Lareau’s book “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life” she discusses the impact that economical class and family upbringings can have on a child and society. Throughout this analysis I will discuss the different approaches Lareau mentions, which approach prepares children for more effective school success, and the implications of these discoveries for teachers and schools.

It is known that the children are unable to determine their life circumstances, their families, and care solely for themselves without supervision. With this being said, children have little to no jurisdiction in determining the situations that they are confronted with. Most of the time when we ponder child poverty we think of low-income families or lack of food in the household, but it extends beyond that to “an environment that is damaging to their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual development” (“Children Under Threat,” 2005). Unfortunately, the prevalence of youth poverty in the United States may seem uncommon to those who are personally unaffected by the crisis; however, statistics show that 15 million children (21% of all children) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold (Child Poverty, 2017). Moreover, when considering the demographics of impoverished children the following are true: a child in the U.S. has a 1 in 5 chance of being poor and the younger they are the poorer they are likely to be, and a child of color is more than twice as likely to be poor than a White child (Child Poverty, 2017). Research proves that poverty is the single greatest threat to a child’s well-being as it decreases the likelihood of a child graduating from high school, and it increases the chances of them becoming involved with the criminal justice system (Ending Child Poverty Now, 2017).

What is it like living in a home with low income? Poverty is the state of not having enough money to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. What affects does it have on children? Children living in low income homes face more challenges than others. The have to endure the pain of not having family members at home when they need them. Children living in poverty have to cope with the stress of taking care of themselves as well as their siblings at times, while trying to maintain satisfactory grades in school. In this paper I will discuss the effect of poverty on a child’s social development, academic performance, and health conditions.

Poor families are considered as one of the most vulnerable groups in the society since they have only few resources to be utilized in their everyday struggle to survival. Since 4Ps aims in improving the lives of children, Brooks-Gunn and Duncan (1997) studies the effect of poverty on the lives of the children. They found out that children who have experienced poverty in the first stages of their schooling, these children have the greater chances of not completing their

Poverty can have a strong influence on various kinds of development throughout middle childhood. It can alter socioemotional development, cognitive development, and physical health. (Evans, 2013). Parenting practices, neighborhoods, and overall environment play a significant role regarding to the emotional and physical health during development in middle childhood. Disruption with physical and emotional health could potentially cause harm to the child. In this essay, I will explain how poverty affects children throughout development and the different consequences that can occur. I will also discuss the many different factors that contribute to poverty.

Poverty can impede children’s ability to learn and contribute to a social, emotional and behavioral problem. Poverty can also contribute to poor and health and mental health according to the National Center for Children (NCCP). People never know what they have until it is gone, some people may even take what they have for granted. For example losing a job may cause low income and sooner or later no income and then poverty, then the psychological effects that come along with poverty can be harmful to one’s mental and physical health. A Famous business magnate and philanthropist once said: “I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act”. In other worlds in order to decrease the rate of poverty, solutions from giving more affordable access to health care and access to efficient education to giving children cash allowance would make a tremendous difference.

Question 2: Discuss the effects of poverty on children’s cognitive and social development and the extent to which effects might extend into adulthood

However, they are individuals just like any other child and they should be given the same opportunities that all children have. Poverty is a huge problem in many areas of the world. MacQueen states “poverty puts children behind from birth, and keeps them behind for life (2003).” If a child is in a household with little money, they may lack “the stable home in a safe neighbourhood, adequate nutrition, and the kind of involved parenting” that would be influential on the correct and desired development of the young child (MacQueen, 2003).

Poverty is one of the major factors that influences families and individuals. When children grow up in an impoverished area, they tend to have many disadvantages in comparison to their peers who grow up in a wealthier environment. Poor communities have less resources available for their residents. Lower income communities tend to have schools with low achievement rates, which affect the students, because they receive a lower level of education compared children that attend well-funded schools. When a child is provided with a poor-quality education, that limits the chances that they will continue to peruse a higher education. When an individual lives in an environment that does not provide many benefits, it makes it harder for individuals to better themselves and make it out of that environment. According to Holtz, Fox, Meurer (2015) children living in poverty tend to have greater behavioral problems that tend to have a negative effect on them.

With the amount of poverty in our nation, it seems that it is the least of our concern. If we put as much effort in ending poverty as we do in fighting each other in a race war, we might actually get somewhere on both grounds. Though there are many studies that have been done on the difference of education level among race or ethnicity, one thing has been proven, “no matter the color or ethnicity of the child, studies have proved that students who live in poverty score well-below average” (Lacoure and Tissington) socially and academically. Children that suffer from poverty are “one point three times more likely to have developmental delays or learning disabilities than those who don’t live in poverty (11 Facts about Education and Poverty in America).” Child poverty can affect a child’s foundation of life-long skill that they will use as building blocks in creating relationship with teachers and their fellow peer. Through poverty the intellectual ability and brain growth of a child can be interfered with if a child’s emotional needs are not met, in-turn creating hardships that will follow them throughout life.

In the United States and in countries all over the world, poverty has extreme impacts on a

Twenty-two percent of children in the United states are living in families that have an income less than the federal poverty level, which is over sixteen million children living in poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty). Children are judged based on their parent’s financial standings, and children that are living in poverty are commonly made fun of, known as the outcast, and are isolated because they are different from most families. Whether it’s not having the nicest clothes, or not having a computer and TV at home; these children are looked at differently. Children who are living in poverty tend to struggle in the school atmosphere, receive lack of emotional support, more susceptible to violence, and lack nutrition and health, causing not only physical but mental complications that have a huge affect on children.

Children from wealthier and higher class backgrounds have greater occupational ambitiousness. A child from a higher class tends to succeed in the careers they have chosen for a longer time. As opposed to children from low-class families which are more likely to become jobless. This is due to their parents’ economic resources; they have gained through their finances. Through having more income parents are able to promote entry into better jobs for their own child. Wealth is also able to allow a child various experiences if not one can develop social