Discuss some of the negative and positive impacts that adversity can have on children's lives

Discuss some of the negative and positive impacts that adversity can have on children’s lives.

Introduction

In this essay I intend to first discuss what is meant be adversity in the context of children and childhood, and what the main causes of adversity in children’s lives are, as discussed in chapters 1,2,3 and 4 of Changing childhoods local and global, Montgomery H, Burr R and Woodhead M (eds) 2003, Milton Keynes. I will examine specific aspects of adversity i.e. poverty, ill health and violence and consider the varying response of children. The concepts of risk and protective factors and their influence on children’s resilience or vulnerability will also be explored while looking at the negative and a few positive impacts adversity can have on children’s lives.

I expect to conclude by demonstrating that some children will exhibit resilience and coping strategies in the most difficult contexts.

Woodhead (1997) cited in chapter 1 (Adversities and Resilience page 2), defines a child’s “well being” as

“based on a holistic understanding of their (the children’s) needs, a recognition of the importance of both their physical needs (for food, sleep, shelter etc.) and their psychological/emotional needs (such as to feel loved and secure, to be given opportunities for play and learning).”

I feel that the definition of a child’s “wellbeing” needs to be wider than just the absence of ill health or of the child living in poverty or in the threat of violence. The definition needs to also consider the child’s emotional and psychological health, their ability to make friends, to have a full social life, to fulfil their potential and maximise their abilities. Children face adversity not just in the poorer, less developed countries, but also in more affluent societies where the pressures are perhaps different but still challenge the child with adversity.

As discussed by Woodhead, I understand adversity for a child to be when circumstances fail to meet the perceived needs of children, violate their rights and threaten their “well-being”. Resilience or Vulnerability can be defined as how children cope with adversity. For some children this is a positive response which may be due to a combination of positive personality traits and a supportive social environment.

Risk factors and Protective factors

The greater the number of risk factors in a child’s life the greater their perceived vulnerability to adversity. Risk factors can be both internal and external. Internal risk factors could be e.g. temperament and external risk factors could be environmental, e.g. living in poverty or in a state of war. These factors could inhibit an individual’s healthy development.

(Boyden and Mann 2000, p7, cited in Chapter 1 Adversities and resilience 3.1)

Protective factors can help the individual child cope with adversity, i.e. to be resilient. Protective factors can also be internal and external. Internal protective factors could be good health and emotional stability, and external protective factors e.g. emotionally supportive relationships and adequate nutrition.

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In their study into children’s resilience Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith investigated which protective factors made some children so much more resilient to adversity. Theirs was one of the first studies on children’s resilience to be carried out. They studied 700 babies born in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and managed to “follow” 88% of the children to age 18. The children were raised in poverty and grew up in an age of huge changes to their island way of life. It was found that while some suffered at school, had poor health and behavioural difficulties, some did not. Werner and Smith investigated which protective factors made some children so much more resilient than others. Werner and Smith concluded that among others, the children’s level of social responsiveness was largely responsible for positive interaction with adult carers and that strong attachments formed with carers had a building block effect of the children’s development. (Ch. 3 Achieving Health For Children page 23)

Adversity can affect children in different ways and to different degrees. The social environment of the child can affect the scale of adversity. Research by social anthropologists has drawn attention to how children’s reactions to adversity can vary between contexts and cultures.

Wadsworth (1986) cited in Chapter 1 Adversities and Resilience page 12), concluded that in the 1940’s divorce was more socially stigmatised than it is now, therefore where children live in communities where many children have experienced divorce the adverse effects may be minimised and more support available to the child.

When defining child poverty (chapter 1, 2.1) advises us that poverty is best defined within the social context of the child. Using the terms absolute poverty and relative poverty it is possible to attempt to define what poverty means to a child in differing social contexts. If absolute poverty is a lack of measurable resources then for Kelly (Video 4 Band 2 Kelly and her Sisters) living in a condemned house in the U.K. with her mother and 5 siblings, it is not having a habitable house to live in, and no disposable income at all. Rosie herself seems to me to be remarkably resilient saying “Our family is getting better and better every day, but the house isn’t” (:195) and “My life could be worse than it is now, but it’s okay” (:206). I would agree that “children who are able to remain hopeful about the future…” (ch1 p.23) are less likely to vulnerable to the effects of adversity. Rosie seems to be aware that things could be better but could also be a lot worse. As stated in the introduction to chapter 1 (p 7) “often children are not aware they are facing adversities in their childhood as they have known no other”.

For Steven in Canada (Chapter 2 Children, poverty and social inequality) however, poverty is relative, he is aware of his material status in relation to others in his social group. “I have to say no (to invitations to the cinema) because my mom doesn’t have enough money. That makes me feel deprived …..” (p 47) This would indicate a holistic awareness of concepts of wellbeing and psychological health.

Many children in the U.K. having to forgo school trips because of the expense and who need to accept free school meals discuss the same feelings of shame, isolation and frustration as the refugee children of Angola. Their physical contexts may not be comparable but for the children the adversity they face raises similar feelings of powerlessness, and isolation within their social context.

(As discussed in Chapter 1 Section 2 Dimensions of Adversity)

A longitudinal study is where a child or children’s lives are studied at regular intervals throughout childhood. An ongoing contemporary example would be “Child of Our Time”, presented by Robert Winston, this is a BBC (British Broadcasting Company) project commissioned to ask the question “Are we born or made?” The series started in the year 2000 will span 20 years of the children’s lives.

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The social environment of the child is also observed and noted.

The Oakland Growth Study

Two of the first major longitudinal studies were begun in California around 1930. These followed two groups of children with eight years between the average ages of each group. The children were “followed” through the Great Depression (1930’s) and later the Second World War (1940’s). The researchers were able to contrast the two groups in their reactions to adversity including financial hardship and resultant family dysfunction. These studies gave the researchers opportunity to gauge the effects of economic adversity in relation to children’s age and also gender. It’s interesting to note that the adversity came from the social and emotional impact of hardship on the parents and family relationships. The children who adapted to the hardships in the Great Depression found opportunities to become more independent and autonomous.

(Chapter 1. 2.1 Studying the effects of adversities page 18)

Another factor of adversity affecting child-parent relationships and the perceived security and well-being of the child, is divorce.

The Rodgers and Prior review (1998) (cited in chapter 1 page 10), of research in countries of the north, confirmed the distress caused to children in the short term. In my personal experience and observation of friends and acquaintances I would agree it is the discord before and leading to divorce that causes most adversity for children. Once the arrangements for children’s care are finalised post divorce and adjustments are made then children appear to readjust.

As previously discussed the social environment of acceptance of divorced families minimises the social stigma and the strength of the bond with carers helps the child/ren to cope with this adversity.

A longitudinal study carried out in New Zealand begun in 1979 on 1,265 children who were followed at yearly intervals, was able to record the children’s reactions to adversity resulting from family changes, including divorce bereavement and separation. The results were compared to reported behavioural problems in the children. It was noted that although divorce was stressful it was the amount of parental discord that led to increased behavioural problems in the children. (Chapter 1 Adversities and Resilience page 11).

Childhood adversity can be viewed as a social construct as discussed previously where divorce is widespread the stigma is lessened for the child therefore social attitudes can increase or decrease the level of adversity in relation for example to:- disability, gender or race.

Adversity can have a positive affect and improve some children’s lives and prospects. Paulo (Video 4 Band 4 children in Prison) in a detention centre for burglary was sent to a country boot camp for 6 months to help him get off drugs and improve his attitude which at that time was “…….Now I really don’t care” (:340), to when he finished boot camp “ when I get out of here …….. I’m going to make them proud of me” (:378).

Martin Woodhead (audio 8 Band 4 Child Soldiers) details his horror as Civilian, a 12 years old former boy soldier, narrates his story through a translator, “the horror of what to most people’s eyes is a totally unchildlike experience” (1:41). Civilian had been kidnapped by the rebels in Sierra Leone and sent back to his village to kill in his former community. Civilian had later been successfully re-homed in his village and was interviewed while in school. Not all boys in the army saw the need to demobilise however. In Uganda some 1600 boys preferred to stay in the army saying it was now “the closest thing to a family” (6:21) that they now had. They felt the army had given them many skills e.g. loyalty, teamwork and independence, very definite positives arising from adversity.

The Romantic discourse of the child as innocent and inherently good therefore needing protection, means that even the phrase “child soldier” is abhorrent, an oxymoron which as such appears totally wrong to our eyes.

In the 1980’s and 90’s many boys in Ethiopia were conscripted to fight in the war with Entrea, agencies involved in reintegrating the boys into their communities noticed a key factor with how well the boys coped with what they had experienced was whether or not they had gone through their initiation ceremony. Those who had, considered themselves men and those who had not, thought of themselves as children and couldn’t as easily reconcile their experience of war as “manly”. For those who considered themselves adult their actions during the war were socially condoned by their community, a protective factor enabling the children (by our standards) to cope with what they had done as combatants.

(de Benny and Boyden, 2000, cited in Chapter 1 page 29)

So it can be said that culturally held beliefs of what counts as childhood adversity, i.e. what is inappropriate for children to experience, affects those children’s level of resilience or vulnerability.

Some factors which cause adversity for children are interconnected – poverty and ill-health, compound and reinforce each other (Changing Childhoods introduction page vii). Economical hardship can place families under stress and increase the risk of violence in the home. Children can experience violence in almost any setting not just in the home but at school, on the streets, as well as in civil conflict and major wars.

Nancy Scheper (Audio 7 Band 2 Nancy Scheper on poverty and health) realised from her research in the shanty towns of Brazil that mothers were having to decide which children were most likely to survive on the meagre rations available, choosing the healthier older children over the weaker infants. Born into extreme poverty the mothers accepted as quite normal that at least 40% of all children would die in the first year of life. (4:42)

Professor Karim, director of the Mother and Baby hospital in Chittagong (Audio 7 Band 3 Chittagong children’s Hospital) states that “the main health issues facing children in Chittagong are ……. Malnutrition, diarrhoea, respiratory infections” “ …. They have nothing because they’re very poor” (1:10). Which I understand to mean that if money was available to ensure clean water and better distribution of basic foods then a lot of their health problems would disappear.

Having considered the protective factors that mitigate the traumatic effects of adversity on a child, I have come to the following conclusions:-

. Strong family bonds give the resilient child support – (Reading C “Seen but not heard: refugee children and models for intervention” Rachel Hinton)

. The more socially adept child forges more supportive relationships with caregivers.

. Child poverty and health are closely linked. Poverty interlinks with ill health and to some extent violence.

. Childhood adversities are often chains of difficult circumstances.

. That children can face a variety of difficult situation and respond differently, i.e. some demonstrate resilience and coping strategies in the most difficult of contexts.

. Adversity is not always negative; a stressful situation may be experienced as adversity by one child and seen as a challenge by another.