Consequences of Stress on Children’s Development

Violence
As  a child I dealt with domestic violence. I grew up in a house hold that was loving, caring and very supportive. Sounds so contradictive right? Many would expect me to say I lived in a home where one parent did not get along with the other and was always fussing. Well in my household it was not like that. I seldom heard my parents fuss. So I was very surprised that Sunday when the family was sitting around the t.v. watching a movie, when my father jumped on my mother. This was new for my siblings as well as myself. How did we handle it the first time? They ran to get help and I jumped on his back, screaming at him to get off my mother. I never saw his next action coming. He grabbed me by my arm and threw me from one room to the next.  From that day I hated him with a hate that was unbearable. None of the neighbors came running over to the house to help us! No one came to our rescue! This was the first of many times this happen. We dealt with it by not dealing with it. No answers came after the questions because no one knew what was going on (years later we found out that he was upset with some male friends and could not handle them and bought his anger home and took it out on us).  My mom forgave him and moved on. I never did. I lost a part of me that day. I lost my trust, faith , and my idea of family was ruined. I never understood why my mother stayed with him and at any given moment he was subject to go off.  So as a result my siblings and I went into protective mood and stayed alert for him to go off. My mom slept on the couch. I spent my nights on the couch across from her. As a child until my parents got a divorce I had to deal with the stress of domestic violence but being looked at as having the perfect family. I coped by not telling anyone. It was too embarrassing to tell.  I dealt with this stressor by trying not to deal with it. It was nothing I or my brothers and sister  could do. So I spent my childhood wishing and praying that my father would just die (sounds bad I know but death was the only way I thought the stress would go away). Due to not wanting to tell anyone, I had no resources for help or support.

A stressor that impacts development in children in Jamaica is community violence.   Many of the children had witnessed severe acts of physical violence such as robbery, shooting and gang wars, a fifth had been victims of serious threats or robbery and one in every twelve had been stabbed. Children's experiences of witnessing violence occurred chiefly in their communities but their personal experiences of violence occurred at school.  Children attending primary school had greater exposure to violence as witnesses and victims. Exposure to violence in childhood has been associated with aggressive and antisocial behavior in childhood. The consequences of childhood exposure to violence, includes antisocial behavior, aggression, anxiety, depression, drug use and suicide. Another important consequence of exposure to violence as witness or victim in the early years is the intention to use violence to resolve inter-personal conflict in later adolescence. The Jamaican government is  using multiple approaches, such as anger management, assertion, social skills and empathy training, peer mediation and parent training to try and intervene with the community violence.

Reference: Mansingh A, Ramphal P. The nature of interpersonal violence in Jamaica and its strain on the national health service. West Indian Med J 1993

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is de

fi ned as “the sudden death of any infant under one year of age which remains unexplained after a thorough case investigation, including complete postmortem examination, review of clinical history and examination of death scene.This topic is very important to me, being the owner of a child care facility and having another person's infant in my care for more than 12 hours a day. When I first took a SIDS training this issue really bothered me because I did not want anything happening to anyone's child even if it the circumstances were out of my hands.  I know that you are suppose to lay the child on their back to sleep and on their stomachs to play. I have all the charts up in my infant rooms at the center. It's really hard explaining to parents that although their child might sleep better and longer on their stomachs, it's for their protection that they sleep on thier backs.
SIDS is a very touchy subject for me. I take it very serously. I wish their was more precauticons that can be taken to keep SIDS from taking place.
In 1994 A national campaign (the "Back to Sleep" campaign) was launched to promote supine positioning during sleep. This really helped out the infant death rate. What bothers me the most about SIDS is that there really is not a known reason for it. The main focus is on smokers. This area is very touchy for me, considering we are dealing with infants. Babies who have no control of how they are layed down to sleep but parents who will still lay thier children on their stomachs because quote " it helps them sleep better" unquote.

Pediatricians and health providers in developing countries, such as Brazil, have little knowledge on risk fi rst year of life. Studies have shown that it has been hard to determine if SIDS is the cause of death for the third world countries

factors for SIDS since it is not seen as an important cause of death in the

 because the risk factors for SIDS is  similar to those found for non-SIDS cases in developing countries since they are closely associated with poverty. its characteristics and incidence rates are still not known in developing countries, characterized by very low income population.

As infant mortality is still quite high in poor countries and generally associated with infectious diseases and malnutrition, pediatricians and health providers have little knowledge on SIDS. Consequently, SIDS is often misdiagnosed and information about SIDS risk factors is not usually provided to parents.

After during research on SIDS in underdevelop countries I found it very distrubing that there is not a lot of information about SIDS to be able to prevent it from happening.

As a daycare provider, I continue to give my parents information about SIDS to assist in preventing it from happening.