Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

There are many different stressors a child may experience in early childhood. Stressors vary and the effect that one stressor may have on a child may be completely different than it may have on another child. Some common stressors may include, but are not limited to:

-War

- Poverty 

-Racism 

-Natural disaster 

-Isolation 

-Hunger 

-Noise 

-Chaos 

-Disease 

-Environmental pollution 

-Violence 

Stressor on me as a young child: One stressor that I experienced growing up was having a sibling with special needs. Although cognitively he was typical, physically he had many birth defects. It caused a lot of stress on my family and me as a 4 year old child. A lot changed when my younger brother was born and some things took adjusting, while other things just changed all together. The main thing that changed for me was the time my parents were able to spend with me. My younger brother Nathan needed to go to many different Doctor's appointment and required multiple surgeries. I sometimes went with my mother, but other times I would stay with a friend or a family member while my mom went with Nathan. Looking at who I am today and looking back to the stress put on my family. I realize that I struggle with some things as a result of Nathan's health problems, but mostly it made me a better person and taught me many things. Below is a photo of my brothers. I am sitting to the left, my younger brother Nathan is in the middle and my older brother Mark is on the right. The top photo is from 1994 and the bottom photo is from 2013. 

Stressor on young children in another country:

China's one-child family policy has had a great effect on the lives of nearly a quarter of the world's population for a quarter of a century. When the policy was introduced in 1979, the Chinese government claimed that it was a short-term measure and that the goal was to move toward a voluntary small-family culture. In this article, we examine to what extent this goal has been achieved and the implications for the future of the policy. First we explain why the policy was introduced and how it is now implemented. We also examine the consequences of the policy in regard to population growth, the ratio between men and women, and the ratio between adult children and dependent elderly parents. Finally, we examine the relevance of the policy in contemporary China and whether the time has come for the policy to be relaxed.


In 1979, the Chinese government embarked on an ambitious program of market reform following the economic stagnation of the Cultural Revolution. At the time, China was home to a quarter of the world's people, who were occupying just 7 percent of world's arable land. Two thirds of the population were under the age of 30 years, and the baby boomers of the 1950s and 1960s were entering their reproductive years. The government saw strict population containment as essential to economic reform and to an improvement in living standards. So the one-child family policy was introduced.
The policy consists of a set of regulations governing the approved size of Chinese families. These regulations include restrictions on family size, late marriage and childbearing, and the spacing of children (in cases in which second children are permitted). The State Family Planning Bureau sets the overall targets and policy direction. Family-planning committees at provincial and county levels devise local strategies for implementation. Despite its name, the one-child rule applies to a minority of the population; for urban residents and government employees, the policy is strictly enforced, with few exceptions. The exceptions include families in which the first child has a disability or both parents work in high-risk occupations (such as mining) or are themselves from one-child families (in some areas).
In rural areas, where approximately 70 percent of the people live, a second child is generally allowed after five years, but this provision sometimes applies only if the first child is a girl — a clear acknowledgment of the traditional preference for boys. A third child is allowed among some ethnic minorities and in remote, underpopulated areas. The policy is underpinned by a system of rewards and penalties, which are largely meted out at the discretion of local officials and hence vary widely. They include economic incentives for compliance and substantial fines, confiscation of belongings, and dismissal from work for noncompliance.

I think it the one child policy in China is a stressor on young children because it is something in their world that they have no control over. It is especially stressful on the second and third children born into these families. 


Sources: 

Hesketh, T., & Xing, Z. W. (2005). The effect of china's one-child family policy after 25 years. The New England Journal of Medicine.