As of 2010, there are more than 72 million children under age eighteen living in the United States. Forty-four percent (31.9 million) belong to low-income families, while twenty-one percent (15.5 million) belong to poor families. At twenty-one percent, the United States holds the highest child poverty rate among all developed countries. The US shows no signs of declining from this standing in the near future. In fact, the proportion of children living in low-income and poor families has increased with time. From 16.2 percent in 2000, to forty percent in 2005, and forty-four percent in 2010, the percentage of children living in poverty illustrates a worrisome trend. Factors such as parents’ country of birth, parents’ education, family structure and race, all come into play in determining the likelihood of a child’s status as “living in poverty,” but what the statistics ultimately relay is that poverty is a prevalent issue in America today.
A dire consequence of this phenomenon is that poverty does not affect children one-dimensionally. Rather, it is far-reaching and has both short-term and long-term effects on many aspects of life. Specifically, an increasingly visible developmental problem that correlates with living in poverty as a child is substance abuse. What links the two issues is poverty-related stress:
“Poverty creates a context of stress in which stressors build on one another and contribute to further stress. Economic strain (the day-today hassles that arise when living with less money than one needs) is one example of this type of stress. Also poverty is associated with a host of additional stressors that can affect children and adolescents adversely, such as conflict among family members, exposure to violenc...
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...y go to the extreme of altering the chemistry of a child’s body. Stress is a concrete result of child poverty, and has concrete deleterious effects on individuals. It can branch to a developmental problem as serious as substance abuse, or it can be alleviated with the knowledge of simple coping techniques. The key to the issues that are present due to child poverty is to address the foundational problem—to prevent the development of a problem such as substance abuse. The effects of poverty-related stress do not imitate a domino effect. Such an analogy implies inevitability and permanency of impoverished children’s developmental problems. Rather, poverty-related negative outcomes can be avoided with tailored, hands-on approaches. Though poverty is something that cannot be tackled as simply, poverty-related developmental problems can be mitigated completely.
Poverty has many influences on children under the age of 16. The research fined out that in recent year, an increasing number of children become poor, live under the poverty condition- childhood poverty lasted 10 years or more. So, what does the poverty exactly mean to children? According to Brook-Gunn and Duncan, The kids who live in the poverty condition have the low quality of schools; more likely to have domestic violence and become homeless; less access to friends, services, etc. (Brooks-Gunn et all, 1997) That points out the disadvantage and how the family income influence youngsters overall childhood, since under the poverty condition, they children do not have enough money to support for their necessary needs, they will more likely to have low self-confidence and hard to blend in with their peers. Poverty has impact on children’s achievement in several different ways. Payne (2003) maintained that the poverty could affect children achievement though emotional, mental, financial, and role models (Payne, 2003). Thus, the children from low-income family are more likely to have self-destructive behavior, lack of control emotional response and lack of necessary intellectual, that is really important for the students under the age of 16. Nevertheless, the children who suffer from poverty are usually have low birth weight and low cognitive ability
When one thinks of poverty often the mental picture that comes to mind is of single parent welfare, dependent, women and unemployed, drug-addicted, alcoholic lackadaisical men. The children are often forgotten. The impact of poverty, the destruction of crime and stigmatization of the violence on the children is more devastating and irreversible than the miseducation and illiteracy that most often companies poverty. The implication is not the poverty can not be overcome but that the cycles of teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and dropping out of high school continues and are hard to break. The badges of poverty are just as addictive and capitiving as any disease such as alcohol or drugs.
In addition to providing alarming statistics about the rate of childhood poverty, Jenson & Fraser highlight how much poverty can adversely affect the outcomes of children both directly and indirectly by impacting them at a familial and community levels (31-34).
Every now and then, the one country situated in the northern part of America where everyone in the world wants to come and settle down to their life. It is the U.S.A. The U.S. is the place where the “American Dream” was born. If you work hard enough in this few barriers country, you will achieve the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for your own family and children. However, that dream is now long gone forgotten because there is now a problem called “child poverty” that has been weighed down the entire U.S. society. So why does child poverty exists in the U.S.? Simple because their parents are poor, and those parents do not have enough resources to nurture their children as a standard citizen of a developed country. The U.S. while being the most powerful and civilized country in the world is still
“Stresses of poverty may impair learning ability in young children.” National Institutes of Health. NIH News, 28 Aug. 2012. Web. 17 Oct. 2012.
It is not difficult to document that poor children suffer a disproportionate share of deprivation, hardship, and bad outcomes. More than 16 million children in the United States – 22% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – $23,550 a year for a family of four. (Truman, 2005) Living in poverty rewires children 's brains and reports show that it produces prolonged effects. Also, growing up in a community with dangerous streets, gangs, confused social expectations, discouraging role models, and few connections to outsiders commanding resources becomes a burden for any child. The concern about the number of children living in poverty arises from our knowledge of the problems children face because of poverty.
According to the Children's Defense Fund, 13.5 million children living in America today are poor, and 5.8 million of them are living in extreme poverty, with incomes below half the poverty line. The issues related to poverty -- from substandard housing and malnutrition, to inadequate health and child care services, to severe emotional stress and violence -- are complex and interconnected. Therefore, attempting to understand the problem and propose possible solutions appears to be an overwhelming task. Garbarino effectively provides a lens through which to view the social forces affecting childhood development. Aletha Huston, on the other hand, in her book Children in Poverty: Child Development and Public Policy, proposes a "child-centered" analysis, which focuses on the child's healthy development as "a goal in its own right," rather than as part of a larger social-economic context.
Yoshikawa, H., Aber, J. L., & Beardslee, W. R. (2012). The effects of poverty on the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children and youth: Implications for prevention. American Psychologist, 67(4), 272.
The United States is divided into three different classes when classifying a group by their income. The classes are the High class, the middle class, and the low class. People who live in the high and middle classes have every day struggles similar to people living in the lower class have; but one thing that fluctuates is the types of struggles people in poorer class have to face proceeding on an everyday basis. For example, not knowing if they will have food on the table for their children, heat for their house in the winter, or have a roof over their head by the end of the month. Unfortunately to every difficulty there is always a gray area over looked. When dealing with poverty, children are often the ones left in that gray area with no
Stressful negative events are constant in the lives of families in poverty, which can lead to poor mental health. These stressors include family conflict, exposure to traumatic events, violence, and financial instability, frequent transitions to new places to call home, and discrimination (Santiago et al., 2013). Children living in poverty conditions are at an increased risk of antisocial behavior that includes aggression, substance abuse, and academic failure. The strained existence of those living in poverty cause emotional internalization of negative events that lead to depression, anxiety, and PTSD; typically, aggressive behavior is the external manifestation of these damaging life events (Santiago et al., 2013).
Poverty causes corrosion of families and parental relationships parents making it extremely hard for parents to get involved in parenting and providing for the childhood basic needs. Parental stress affects the development process of a child, and extreme stress can impair the neuron pathways of the child’s brain, which is underdeveloped (Kail, 2006). As a result, continuous problems in learning, physical and mental health and learning emerge in the child’s life. Studies affirm that the prevalence of poverty is high in households with non-English residents, single parents and large families with high illiteracy levels. All these are contributing factors of poverty that result in stress. This implies that children in these families are exposed to childhood development problems, but it should not guarantee that children raised in English families do not experience childhood development
Poverty is “the inability to acquire enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter” (Gosselin,2009). This social disadvantage limits one’s ability to receive a quality education and it is a constant problem throughout the world accompanied with“deleterious impacts on almost all aspects of family life and outcomes for children”(Ravallion,1992). Poverty is a main factor that affects normal human growth and development in a variety of ways, primarily impacting children’s early development, social behaviour, health, and self worth.
Thus, poverty has extreme detrimental effects and consequences for children and families suffering through it. It is still unclear whether poverty can ever be eradicated as there are millions still in poverty around the world. The effects of poverty on children have extreme consequences for the early stages of their development, and the consequences for a family relies on the income inadequacies that many in poverty face. These consequences are reinforced by Saunders (2005) as discussed throughout this essay. Therefore, poverty has some major damaging effects for all individuals involved.
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 their own emotions as well as the emotions of others. Some of the implications of poverty include educational setbacks, issues with social behaviors and hindrances in psychological and physical development. Poverty deprives children of the capabilities needed to survive, develop and prosper in society. Studies have shown that the income status of a household and even the neighborhoods in which they reside can affect the amount of readily available resources needed to sustain a healthy child. This essay will examine the psychological and physical effects of poverty on children. The psychological aspect will include a look at behavioral problems in children, depression, chronic stress, and conduct disorders such as ADHD. Poverty is known to decrease the amount of psychological and physical capabilities in children which can have long term adverse effects on their wellbeing.
The effects of poverty can affect a parent’s mental health that can directly impact children. Mental health problems that parents in poverty face can be related to the stress of not having enough money to care for the children. Other mental health problems, like depression, can als...