Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

In today’s society, there are a lot of stressors that affect children.   I don’t know anyone personally that experienced these stressors as a child.  However, my mom shared with me once I got older about the violence she went through with my biological father.  He is now deceased.  My mom and dad got a divorce when I was very young.  She said that he would go out and have drinks, and once he returned home he wanted to fuss and fight.  She said that was not the environment she wanted to raise  a family in.  She would leave and go stay at her mom’s house, and he would beg her to come back.  Her mom and sisters were her support system.  They didn’t want her to be with him because they knew how crazy he acted when he got drunk.  He would give her a sad story about how much he loved me and her.  She would constantly go back only to endure the same violence month after month.  She finally got fed up and couldn’t take it anymore. That’s what brought them to divorce. 

Poverty is a stressor that affects a lot of children.  I know poverty affects a lot of countries, but I chose to explore the issues in Guyana.  Guyana is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, but has a wealth of natural resources, including fertile agricultural land, minerals and large swaths of tropical forest.  It ranks 117th out of 187 countries on the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index and is classified as a lower-middle-income country by the World Bank.  Roughly two-thirds of Guyanese citizens living in poverty, or 29% of the population, can be classified as being extremely poor. Most of the poor live in rural areas and work as agricultural laborers. Though Guyana’s farmers have access to adequate land resources, their productivity is extremely low.  It saddens me to know that countries such as Guyana experience poverty like this.  It really makes me appreciate the abundance of resources that we have in the US.  I hope that one day these same resources can be sent to places like Guyana to help eliminate some of the stressors the children face.

References

http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/guyana