Children in Poverty

Impoverished environments impact children at all developmental stages and those impacts increase over time (Haynie, 2014).

Poverty resulting from other areas of children’s ecosystems like family housing resources and security, neighborhood factors, and reduced social control contribute indirect impacts on child developmental outcomes (Haynie, 2014)

      The toxic effects of stress on the brain are mechanisms through which poverty affects children and adults’ health and well-being. Evidence abounds through research on the impacts of poverty on physiologic and neurobiological development and their link to poverty-related lags in academic achievement and children’s lifelong physical and mental health in poverty. (Blair & Raver, 2016).

     Children in poverty experience starvation, disease, uncertainty, vulnerability. They are more prone to experience low academic achievement, obesity, behavioral problems, and social and emotional development setbacks. Increased stress result from poverty is known to effects a child’s developmental outcome. Stress can lead to “changes in the cardiovascular system, the immune system, and the neuroendocrine and cortical systems” (Haynie, 2014), which have implications for a child’s cognitive development. The direct effect of poverty-related stress aside, poverty also indirectly impacts children’s development through parents’ direct effects. Poverty increases parents’ stress and impairs parenting practices through mental health (Haynie, 2014).

      Though I never experienced poverty firsthand, as a caregiver and have been around the United States, I have had the privilege to meet with and observe children in poverty. Often we think Children living in poverty are in a distant country, forgetting that we have the right at the back of our yard. According to Heider (2021), about 11 million children live in poverty in the United States; 1 in 7 kids live in poverty here in this country. It is embarrassing to hear that the United States, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, has a child poverty level that continues persistently high for this long. The United States has consistently ranked as one of the worst in child poverty rates among the thirty-seven countries that made up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Heider, 2021)

Since April 2020, the share number of children with at least one unemployed parent has increased even beyond the reported rates during the Great Recession peak.

     UCLA researchers conducted a nationwide study that found that health inequities can be measured in children as young as five. The research, published in Health Affairs, adds to a growing body of findings showing that children of color who are poor are prone to health inequities than white children (UCLA Health,2020).

      The Impacts of poverty on brain development are evident in infancy. Effects of poverty on brain development result in reduced learning stimulation, leading to lower school readiness and achievement and positive life outcome. Stressful psychosocial and physical conditions within the home, parents exposed to a greater risk of being insensitive and lukewarm in their caregiving. Maternal insensitivity leads to an increased probability that their children will show “elevated cortisol levels and lower executive function ability, with commensurate difficulty regulating emotion and behavior” (Blair & Raver, 2016).

     I think supporting children’s physiologic reactivity, cognitive control, and self-regulation through parenting and classroom-based interventions, with policymakers and practitioners’ help, caregivers should mitigate poverty costs offered by child development.  

 Reversing the negative outcome of poverty for children’s brain development is not just plausible but is also practical. Therefore, through the home, school, pediatric medical home, and community-based intervention(Blair & Raver, 2016), we can and must take those positive steps now. (Blair & Raver, 2016)

                                        References

Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2016). Poverty, Stress, and Brain Development: 

     New Directions for Prevention and Intervention. Poverty, Stress, and 

     Brain Development: New Directions for Prevention and Intervention, 

     S33–S36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2016.01.010

Effects of poverty on childhood development seen in children as young as

      5 - UCLA Health - Los Angeles, CA. (2020). UCLA Health. 

      https://www.uclahealth.org/effects-of-poverty-on-childhood-  

      development-seen-in-children-as-young-as-5

Haynie, L. (2014). Childhood poverty, living below the line. American  

      Psychological Association. 

      https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2014/06/

     childhood-poverty

The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty. (2021, January 12). Center for 

     American Progress. 

     https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/reports

     /2021/01/12/494506/basic-facts-children-poverty/