Childhood Poverty

2192 Words5 Pages

While trapped in a grimy little room and surrounded by moldy walls, curtains haggard, certainly prevents anyone from seeing the outside world. What if past those dirty fortifications the sun is shining or fresh rain is washing the dusty sidewalks clean? Only by leaving the room could someone realize the possibilities waiting for them outside. Poverty, this “grimy little room” deceives children of this planet into thinking that there is no way out, through a pattern introduced by parents and acknowledged as the way of life. The growing hunger and poverty around the globe impinge on a large percentage of the child population, significantly lowering the quality of their living circumstances, denying sufficient amounts of nourishment and the ability …show more content…

The stress brought on by living in poverty and the daily struggle for survival deeply affects these children emotionally. Provided that children at home are faced with issues no child should have to preoccupy themselves with; as a result, they are at risk for chronic stress which is dumped on them by their living conditions. Ratcliff and McKernan in their article about the lasting consequences of childhood poverty quote a source which points out that “Chronic stress is a contributing factor in the link between childhood poverty and lower levels of working memory (Evans and Schamberg 2009)” (Ratcliffe, McKernan 1). This stress is noticeable to a child by simply observing a struggling parent, hence they associate with this feeling of stress as something perhaps caused by them. These emotions regularly spread to their life outside the household into the school environment and influence the way they perceive the importance of education, which in addition is frequently considered trivial. The article “Child poverty and its lasting consequences” sets out to prove that poverty experienced from early childhood could be linked to poor performance in school, lower IQ scores from a very early age, which also has further implications for their academic performance later in life (Ratcliffe, McKernan 1). In conclusion a child, who’s main purpose in life is to play, learn from observation and most of all be happy, by no means benefits of such

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