Consequences of Stress on Child Development

Stress can come from a lot of different places and affect children in so many different ways.  In my community growing up, one of the biggest stresses on  myself and my peers was parental divorce.  My own parents separated when I was thirteen and divorced when I was fifteen.  My twin sisters were nine when my parents separated.  They both responded to my parents' divorce than I did, differences that I can still identify now, twelve years later.

While most of my childhood memories include both parents and the trauma of their divorce tainted only the end of my middle school years, my sisters underwent the transition in the midst of finishing elementary school and entering the stressful times of middle school.  While I was a typical overachieving first born through middle school, my sisters struggled to perform as well, struggled to find acceptance of themselves and from my parents, and struggled to balance different extracurricular activities.  Juggling the back and forth between two households and navigating the relationship between my parents, who have never since gotten along, was very challenging for my sisters as they worked their way through middle school.  They had more identity confusion, more bullying problems, poorer performance in school, and deeper self confidence issues than I ever had.  While some of those problems are probably natural discrepancies between siblings, the timing of my parents' separation had to have also been a factor.  For me, at the end of middle school, my parents never had to attend parent-teacher conferences or dance recitals together, they never navigated who would take me to a sleepover or who would help with a science project.  I was fairly self-sufficient already.  My sisters, on the other hand, had to work out all of those moving parts, while dealing with the natural stresses of middle school, and mediating between two parents acting like small children.

My sisters and I coped with the stress of the divorce by growing incredibly close, especially the two of them.  We also grew much closer to my dad as he became an advocate for us.  Additionally, all three of us were incredibly well supported by my mother's friends, relationships we still hold close today.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon during a winter storm.

© UNICEF Lebanon/Ramzi-Haidar,Bekaa-Al-

Ramzi-Haldar, Bekka-Al. (2015). UNICEF. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/appeals/syrianrefugees.html

 Last post, I wrote about the impact of insufficient clean water access for Syrian children in the midst of the civil war and refugee crisis.  As a follow up to that post, I would like to continue to share what stressors could be affecting Syrian child refugees in Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey, and what is being done to limit the impact of these stressors on displaced children in the region.  The number of applicable stressors in the lives of these children is seemingly endless: war, poverty, hunger, chaos, disease, violence, and family separation, and even recently, a significant winter storm.

As of this previous December, UNICEF reported 5.6 million children in need within Syria and and additional 1.7 million refugee children in the surrounding nations (UNICEF, 2014).  A strategic response plan has officially been implemented to coordinate relief efforts seeking to aid in the reduction of trauma associated with the war and subsequent displacement.  Trucks are actively working to deliver supplies like family and baby hygiene kits, winter clothes, high energy biscuits, and nutritional supplements.  The coordinated strategic response plan hopes to "focus on building the resilience of families and systems in the longer term to withstand and overcome shocks" (UNICEF, 2014).  In addition, the plan hopes to target 4.5 million children from 3-17 years needing important education interventions, as well as reactivating routine vaccination programs disrupted by the conflict.  Water and nutrition interventions are also in place and looking to expand, especially in treatment of 22,000 severely malnourished children under five (UNICEF, 2014).  Finally, the plan seeks to expand psychosocial support services by building up permanent and mobile spaces friendly to the at-risk adolescent population affected by the crisis (UNICEF, 2014).

In light of the most recent winter storm this past December, UNICEF was able to distribute winter clothing and blankets, heating supplies, and other important resources to 916,200 refugee children, focusing specifically on those in elevated areas or young children.  UNICEF is working hard to provide unmet needs of baby blankets, electric heaters, tents, and heaters in schools (UNICEF, 2015). 

While the developmental needs of these at-risk children are tremendous, and the resources to minimize the impact of these stressors are minimal compared to the task at hand, I do believe tremendous efforts will dampen the long term impacts of the crisis.  Obviously long term education, nutrition, family planning and stability, and other outcomes will suffer, but perhaps not as greatly as they would have without the important efforts of NGOs in the region.


Resources
UNICEF. (2014). Syria Crisis Monthly Humanitarian Situation Report. 13 November-12 December 2014.  Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/appeals/syrianrefugees_sitreps.html

UNICEF. (2015). Syria Crisis Winter Humanitarian Situation Report.  Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/appeals/syrianrefugees_sitreps.html