Choose a kind of childhood trauma. Childhood Trauma brought by Divorce

Childhood Trauma brought by Divorce
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December 16, 2019
Childhood trauma is perhaps on the most pressing concerns for a child’s physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. According to Stevens (2013), almost 35 million children in the United States alone have experienced some kind of trauma during their own childhood. This accounts for about half of the country’s population, which suggests the increasing need for both state and non-state actors to address these concerns. Accordingly, this paper would discuss one of the most common sources of trauma for children – Economic Stress. In the succeeding sections, the author would focus on some of the main effects of economic distress to the children’s growth and well-being. All in all, the author believes that by looking at the effects of economic distress to children, a better understanding of the needed interventions can be reached.
Economic Distress and Poverty
In a study conducted by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) about 21% (or 15 million children) of all children in the United States are living under the threshold set by the US Federal Government CITATION NCC19 \l 1033 (NCCP.Org, 2019). This means that a significant percentage of these children are struggling to satisfy their basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and education, among others. In addition to this, it is also found that children who come from minorities are most likely to become at risk of economic distress than those coming from the Whites CITATION Chi19 \l 1033 (ChildTrends.org, 2019). This is the reason for the consistent low educational attainment rates among Black Americans living in the suburbs. From this, it could be seen that economic distress is still a pressing concern in society today due to its variability in nature and the psychological, physical, and emotional effects on children.
Physical Effects
It is a common belief that children in poverty experience several health problems due to the inability of his family to provide food and other commodities needed for his growth. However, studies would show that one of the reasons why children living below the poverty line, as in the state of malnutrition is because of the family’s dependence on low-cost food sources such as fast foods. In fact, a 2013 study conducted by Vikraman, Fryar, and Ogden (2015) showed that fast-food consumption is one of the main reasons for the increase in the number of overweight and obese children, especially since these low-cost foods are more affordable as compared to vegetables and fruits that can be bought at the local grocery store. In addition to this, the lack of nutrition could hinder the effective growth and development of the child. These could then lead to fatal illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and even heart problems CITATION Chi15 \l 1033 (Chi, Dinh, da Fonseca, Scott, & Carle, 2015).
Psychological Effects
Economic distress and poverty could affect a child’s psychological health and well-being. For example, one study suggested that children who are living in poverty are at great risks to develop negative feelings about themselves, suffer from low self-esteem, and have the lesser motivation of pursuing their dreams in life as compared to other children who are in a better financial capacity CITATION Chind1 \l 1033 (ChildrenSociety.Org.UK, n.d.). Aside from this, children under three years old are also found to experience some sort of developmental delays in terms of speech and reading due to the insufficient nutrition that they are getting during childhood CITATION Wei151 \l 1033 (Wei, et al., 2015).
Other Effects on Child’s Well-being
Aside from physical and psychological effects on the child, poverty also affects the child’s overall well-being and future. In fact, these effects form a chain of causality, wherein one of the causes lead to an adverse effect on the other and vice versa.
On the one hand, studies have shown that poverty affects both the child’s educational and career attainment in the future. Subsequently, additional research confirmed that lower educational attainment increases a teenager’s (female) to suffer from unp...