Poverty and Child Development

[Name of the institute]Poverty and Child Development

Introduction

Life is beautiful! It is the privilege right of every individual to enjoy each and every pleasure of life. But, this is also a fact that life is not a bed of roses. In life, various circumstances occur that hinder us in progressing and moving ahead in our lives. One such problem is of poverty. Poverty is something that creates obstacles for us to succeed and to develop. This element of poverty becomes of utmost importance when it comes to the development, growth and progress of children. This is an issue that has been in debate for so long. The aim and objective of this paper is also to undertake research about this issue. The purpose of this research is to reveal how poverty can cause its impact on the development of children. This research paper aims to talk about the impact of poverty on child development from the perspective education and learning, socio-emotional, behavioral and psychological development.

Literature Review

First and foremost, it is important to understand that children have to grow and develop in many different areas in order to become healthy, happy, productive members of society. There are four main areas or channels in which children grow physical, psychosocial, social and cognitive. In order to enjoy each and every pleasure of life it is imperative for an individual to be in the perfect state of health, fitness and psychology so that the person can enjoy the every aspect of life. Children who live in poverty suffer from a number of problems. Child development can be described as growth, physically and emotionally, and cognitive development biologically. Child development plays an essential role in developing the personality of the child as the child grows up. When the basic necessities and basic privileges are absent from life then every kind of development gets affected. There has been extensive research that was performed about the impact of poverty on child development. The following part of the paper reviews literature related to this issue.

According to UNICEF “It is this element of poverty because of which every right of children is facing threat. It is this problem of poverty that deprives the capacities of children that they should exploit and utilize for their survival and for their development (UNICEF, 2004, 36).” In generic way, it can be stated that poverty impedes children to practice their basic rights and affects their sense of well being. The protective environment of children is disrupted by poverty and makes them susceptible to suffer from abuse and situations that restrict their development (UNICEF, 2004, 2005a, 2005b).

There is no doubt that there poverty cause detrimental effects on the development of children. There are scores of studies that prove that growing up in poverty causes on the cognitive capabilities, socio-emotional and behavioral factors of the child's development. These causes of poverty on the development of children are of crucial nature in early years of a child (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997; Duncan ...