Sunday, September 28, 2014

Chaos=Stress

As a child often I would witness my Mom and Dad argue over the littlest things. Things that children shouldn't hear. Things that children wouldn't understand. Accusations of martial cheating, communication, and distance were often the basis of their conversations. Today as an adult I understand that hearing these arguments were inappropriate for a child to hear. These arguments were stressors as a child. Often I would felt uneasy, unwanted, and ready to get pass the disputes so that they would give me some attention. These arguments would linger for weekends or weeks and a time. According to Bergner children whose early experiences were highly stressful and who lacked nurturing caregivers may have impaired the limbic systems (Bergner, 2014). I do not believe my limbic system was impaired because I eventually learned how to remove myself from the environment. I joined school organizations to occupy more of my time. I visited friends and family on weekends. I learned how to protect myself.

Due to my experience as a child with a chaotic atmosphere I was curious to find a country with children in the same predicament. I choose to research Iraq due to the consistent war and conflict. Iraq is probably the most dangerous insecure country. Kidnappings, car bombs and assassinations are apart of their everyday lives. These traumatic events can be stressors for children. Many live in poverty and wish they could live in America. According to the CIA Factbook maternal and infant mortality rates are extremely low which could be a sign of different stressors during and after pregnancy.

63 deaths/100,000 live births (2010)
country comparison to the world: 98
total: 37.53 deaths/1,000 live births
country comparison to the world: 62
male: 41.57 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 33.28 deaths/1,000 live births (2014 est.)

Berger, K. S. (2014). The Developing Person Through Childhood 6th Edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
War child. (2014, September 25). Retrieved from worldchild.org/uk



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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 28, 2014 at 1:23 PM

    It seems that nature and nurture are both important. Many scientists do not agree on which is more important for the morality of the child (Berger, 2012). Parents and teachers seem to be a crucial factor in this discussion. There are two moral issues that Berger concentrates on. First, is pro-social behavior versus antisocial behavior, antisocial behavior tends to hinge on aggression. Second, are the moral lessons learned through discipline (Berger, 2012). Pro-social behavior is behavior that children show when they want to help others with no apparent benefit for them. Antisocial behavior is more aggressive shown by directed aggression toward another person (Berger, 2012).
    I was thinking that in a community with so much strife as with Iraq, that children and possibly even adults could fall into one of these categories, but especially the antisocial category. I think that if our country was the country that seemed to be getting attacked, there is a possibly that I could become antisocial showing aggression to people of the opposing country. Children that really don't know why these things are happening or have mixed feelings could also become aggressive toward their parents even.

    References
    Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th Ed.). New York, NY: Worth

    Publishers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanaSeptember 28, 2014 at 5:33 PM

    Berger (2014) says prosocial behavior is an evolutionary characteristic in social groups that make the people want to do things to benefit the group as a whole. I'm sorry your parents argued a lot. Im sure that was very difficult on you growing up. But your coping mechanisms of removing yourself from the situation seemed to work. And you found a way to be with a social group in a healthy manner.

    References
    Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th Ed.). New York, NY: Worth

    Publishers.

    ReplyDelete

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