When I think about my daughter who is three I look at the list of the stressors and I hope that she never faces many of these stressors in her life time. One stressor that I know of that impacts her is noise. She does not like high pitched noises like a lawn mower, a leaf blower, a blender, hammering etc. When she hears these things she looks around and covers her ears. Sometimes she will run to another room to get away from the "noise". When she does this my husband or I will go and and talk to her about the noise. We typically try and show her what is producing that noise so that she will become familiar with it and not be scared of the noises. We have even had her hearing check to try and understand why certain noises impact her.
When I look at the list of stresses that a child may have in their life I see this list in many of the children we serve in our program and the way children cope with themselves varies. When I look at this list I see children experiencing more than one of these things in their lives and they are all under the age of five. The children we serve are facing poverty, racism, isolation, hunger, chaos and violence. When I think about Rural Alaska I feel that many of these stressors are prevalant in our communities. How do we get families out of poverty? Poverty leads to hunger, isolation and violence. I feel thataction of violence is typically the end of the line for many. When I see children that are hungry we see them acting out, eating a lot at school and withdrawn. This then effects their behavior, attendance at school, how they learn and retain that information. I think that there are many programs in our region to help with the effects of the stressors. In the region I live in I see a lot of programs like our free and reduced lunch program, attendance and drop out programs, wellness programs etc.
Its funny you mention noise as a stressor, I have a student in my class who could not handle the noise in the cafeteria so I let him eat in my classroom. Stress is something that ideally no child would ever have to face in their life, stressors like poverty, violence, hunger, I feel we as a species have failed and will continue to fail as long as children go to bed hungry or fearful or homeless. The effects of stress on the developing brain have been well documented. Stressed brains are smaller, the frontal lobes are less developed and it is there that the higher logical reasoning takes place that allows a person to reason... I would cite a source but it comes from several conferences I have attended over the past decade, and a few documentaries I have watched on the learning channel when I was bored.
ReplyDeleteIt is so beautiful for you to have a focus in making a difference in the lives of others. I too have seen children that have difficulty dealing with sudden noises. Poverty, racism, and these other stressors I believe children should not have to go through; however ;many do, even all of us. I am thankful for people, caregivers like yourself seeing to the needs and strengthen the lives of children
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how noise effects your daughter so much. Do you know why she is impacted so much by those loud noises?
ReplyDeleteYou are so correct when you say one stressor can lead to many other. Its like a domino effect and is so sad how it can spin out of control. That why as educators it is so important to be aware of the children we care for and the environment they live in, so we can better help them.
ReplyDelete