CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS ON CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT

Stress is one of the major factors that has lasting effects on children's development. The early negative experiences a child goes through has a way of manifesting in the later years of the child's development. Some of these stressors includes poverty, violence, hunger, etc.

I am going to look at how violence in the home affected development of my aunt's children. I have an aunt who got married some years ago, and the marriage has always suffered violence right from the beginning. Her husband was always very violent and never saw anything good in the wife, which led to his hitting and beating her at every slight thing. The children grew up in this environment and always felt rejected and unhappy because they never received any form of love from their father. While their friends at school had fantastic stories to tell about their parents, they never had anything to say.  As they were growing up, they felt a great bitterness for their father.

As time went on, my aunt lost her job, and that affected the children because their father was no where close to helping them. My aunt could no longer afford their school fees, so her first son (Godwin) had to drop out from school and engaged in some menial jobs in order to support the younger ones. This experience caused him so much pain and even more hatred and anger towards his father. When his mates were going through school, he sees them and will  always tell himself that he can't make it further any longer, so depression also set in. Not only has this situation affected this child's development, especially in the aspect of gaining formal education, it has also left him with an inferiority complex especially when he finds himself among his mates.

Apart from the stressors mentioned in this week's study, another stressor that has adverse effect on child's development is divorce. Parental separation/divorce is associated with increased risk for numerous psychological, academic and social problems throughout the life-course.The effects of divorce on children can range from mild to severe and from short-term to long-term. Millions of children who see their parents divorce are nonetheless affected in serious ways by that act of rejection. Over the years there have been high cases of divorce in the United States of America. This goes along way to affect the child's development. Some of the problems that are associated with divorce is remarriage, emotional imbalance. In America, most divorced or separated parents, end up remarrying because single parenting is more of an enduring condition. By so doing, the children end up entering into step families. when this happens, it takes time for the child to establish a bond and attachment with the step parent which has a great effect on the child's emotions and development. Some of the children turn out to be morally handicapped because of lack of some necessary training and love from both parents.

Stress, if not handled properly, can affect child development especially ion the early years.