Children raised in poverty are faced daily with overwhelming challenges that affect their behavior. Their brains have adapted to impoverished conditions in ways that lessen proficient school performances (Jensen, 2009). Along with many other stressors and factors that affects a child raised in poverty. There are four significant risk factors affecting children raised in poverty. These include: emotional and social challenges, acute and chronic stressors, cognitive lags, and health and safety issues (Jensen, 2009).
Children from low income families face emotional and social instability. The weak and anxious attachments formed by infants in poverty begin high levels of insecurity during their early childhood years (Jensen, 2009). Infants require
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Chronic stress is defined as high stress that continues over time (Jensen, 2009). Children from low income families have a higher risk of acute and chronic stress, more than their peers from middle of high income families. Chronic stress is more common and exerts a more relentless influence on children's day-today lives (Jensen, 2009). Research findings from Almedia et al., (2005) proposes that children living in poverty experience significantly greater chronic stress than do their more affluent counterparts (Jensen, 2009). Chronic stress influences a devastating influence on children’s physical, emotional, and cognitive functioning. It affects their brain development, academic success, and social competence (Jensen, 2009). According to Jensen (2009) students who experience chronic stress may lack crucial coping skills and experience significant behavioral and academic problems in …show more content…
African American children are more likely to come from impoverished homes. They are more likely to misbehave and engage in non-compliant behavior (Darensbourg, et al., 2010). A report from the National Research Council, Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education, (2002) suggests that African American children who grow up in poverty are less prepared to meet the behavioral demands of school. Students from low-income homes report receiving more severe consequences than those who came from high income families for discipline infractions. African American males continue to be disproportionately represented in exclusionary discipline practices even when SES is controlled (Jensen,
According to the article Poverty and the Developing Brain: Insights from Neuroimaging article by Sheeva Azma, poverty is linked to emotional processing and memory environmental factors of poverty may have on a child’s behavior and academic performance in school that poverty causes physical changes to a child’s brain (Azma,2013). Poverty can affect a child’s development from a mild range or severe. This is
To start, little is actually known about the importance and effect of timing of poverty on children’s psychological development. Economic deprivation during different phases and time frames of childhood can also alter the outcome of the child. Studies that have been done about children's early cognitive and physical development suggest that family income in the first five years of life has the most
Poverty affects the health of a child, which undesirably impacts the development process. Scientist have ran many tests to support the argument that poverty does effect a child’s brain development. Seth Pollak, a child development researcher, and his team analyzed nearly 1000 MRI scans of rather diverse children from all over the U.S between 2001 and 2007. Making sure to exclude individuals who were born from risky pregnancies, complicated births and subjects who had a family history of mental illness. The MRI scans revealed that the areas of the brain that were affected by environmental influences and academic
Insecure attachment in low-income households is common because parents have to work full time, low paying jobs in order to make ends meet and do not have time to spend with their children. Since their jobs are low paying it also makes it more difficult for them to afford day care or other high quality childcare options. Individuals in poverty are most likely to have children who are insecurely attached because they were most likely not securely attached themselves as children. Parents in poverty are stressed about their situation of living in poverty and are usually focused on their finances rather than caring for and supporting their child. Children in poverty are also more likely to be exposed to negative life experiences due to living in
An issue that affects children in urban areas is poverty. Children who live in poverty are impacted with many negative effects physically or mentally. Some of these issues related to poverty are substandard housing, inadequate nutrition and food insecurity, inadequate child care, lack of access to health care, unsafe neighborhoods, and under resourced schools. Studies show that “poverty affects child development and they experience more social problems” (Curley).
The experience of childhood by children in poverty differs from children not in poverty. Children in poverty are prone to more risk factors such as lack
When analyzing children growing up in poverty a lot of factors come into play such as their physical, psychological and emotional development. To grow up in poverty can have long term effect on a child. What should be emphasized in analyzing the effects of poverty on children is how it has caused many children around the world to suffer from physical disorders, malnutrition, and even diminishes their capacities to function in society. Poverty has played a major role in the functioning of families and the level of social and emotional competency that children are able to reach. Children in poverty stricken families are exposed to greater and emotional risks and stress level factors. They are even capable of understanding and dealing with
Mental health in childhood poverty is another area which is significantly impacted. Children of low-income families often grow up in stressful situations that they have no control over, such as parental divorce, parental job loss and parental addictions. These can all create a harmful mental health situation that can follow the child into adulthood. Parents who are trying to provide the basics for their families tend to work more hours to cover those necessities. The parents are then unable to spend quality time with their children, leading the children to acquire low self-esteem and poor relationship building skills. These situations tend to flow into the long-term effects of childhood poverty.
Children are faced with many consequences due to growing up in poverty. Most children who live in poverty go to poor unsuitable schools, live in unexceptable housing, and grow up around more violence and crime than any other parent would wish for their child. As soon as the child is born into poverty, they begin to feel the effects of it. They tend to have low birth weight and contain a higher risk of dying during infancy. We watched a video in class that showed that poverty could take a toll on the child’s learning capabilities, and health status. There were stories of children with hyperactivity problems, chronic ear infections which caused hearing loss, and even children who were not receiving the proper amount of nutrients to be able to grow and function correctly. The first years of a child’s life are the most crucial because most of the development of the brain occurs then.
Amongst the latest reports on poverty, there is also growing evidence that living in poverty can negatively affect children’s brains. More specifically, “Living below the poverty line reduced brain volume in areas associated with learning.” (Calfas 2015) Furthermore, the demographics show that the percentage of U.S. children whose family was living below the poverty line in 2013 was significantly higher when looking at children in minorities versus their white counterparts. The combination of the newly presented facts that say poverty can negatively affect a child’s brain and the demographics showing that more children of color are poverty stricken both highlight the fact that although the economy has been on the recovery, many children, specifically children of color, have been left behind (Potter 2015). Since children living in poverty have reduced brain volume in areas associated with learning and a majority of them are minority children, an unfortunate trend occurs where you see more and more children of color falling behind academically when compared to their white counterparts. From trends like this one, more and more unintentional segregation, the legal or social practice of separating people on the basis of their race or ethnicity (Conley 2015), occurs where you have a constant increase in the number of minority people who are stricken by inequality and
The risk factor that I am most concerned with for today's children is poverty because "poverty puts children at risk for negative developmental outcomes" (Berns, 2013, p. 234). The reason I decided to choose this risk factor is that poverty can have an negative impact on children's education and I learned from watching the movie Beyond the Blackboard how homeless can affect children's learning. Poverty affects children's learning in numerous ways though I believe the worst impact is how it effects their self-esteem and instead of worrying about how well they might have done on a test, they worry about were they are going to sleep or if they will be able to eat someplace safe.
Poverty threatens a wide range of child development; most affected is academic achievements and performance in school. Various studies performed show that poverty in the family directly influences a decrease in IQ in children. It affects younger kids causing them to have a harder time picking up verbal skills and learning to talk. As kids grow older it affects their achievement scores on tests and causes them to have a harder time reaching educational milestones. This is mostly due to the added stress of the surrounding environment, the daily
In addition, there are significant risk factors that affect children whenever they are raised in poverty. The risks factors are emotional and social challenges, acute and chronic stressors, cognitive, and health and safety issues. Most of the time children that are facing these factors will have a challenging life in the academic and social success. Lastly, according to the article Giving What We can “Sponsoring individual students and fund schools so that the poor students do have to pay the school fees are common in developing world.” As a country our priority have to be to help all those poor families so that Belize can become a better country.
Poverty brings several things with it that increase the infant’s risk to physical, emotional, and cognitive harm. The infants and children raised in poverty are less likely to receive basic medical treatment. Untreated illnesses can have lifelong effect on a child. Poverty is a generational issue and often times the mothers has not been taught basic play and interaction skills with their newborn from their mother. It is rare that one moves beyond their scope of life experience. Poverty is one of the risk factors that have additional consequences that accompany it. The families are more likely to live in substandard conditions that expose the infant to environmental risks such as contaminated drinking water and lead. Additional stressors during this stage are financial stressors and depression among the infant’s caregiver. These issues can lead to ignoring of the infant’s emotional needs and the infant misses the opportunity to create a lifelong bond with another and trust in another being able to meet their needs. Inadequate parenting can occur over a child’s entire life span with different and yet still devastating results. As stated in by Hutchinson in her book Dimensions of Human Behavior, Changing the Life Course (2008):
Lastly, the assignment will explore socioeconomic status and its involvement in childhood adversities, thus the impact it has on an individual’s development. Psychologists collectively associate socio-economic status as playing an imperative role in the well-being of a child, impacting their development in a number of ways. Low socio-economic status (SES) is broadly recognized to have damaging effects on welfare and development of children. These include internalizing behaviors such as depression and self-esteem, externalizing behaviors such as aggression, and cognitive and language development (Keating & Hertzman, 1999; Mendelson, Kubzansky, Datta, & Buka, 2008).