What is it about?
Children living in poverty, in abusive families and in institutional or foster care, suffer physiological changes in their developing brains which negatively affect their healthy social skills development. Their ability to socialize and form meaningful relationships with others is impeded as a result. This paper examines the reasons why children living in adversity come to school with an overload of emotional baggage and the resulting effects on their behaviour, learning and relationships. It also examines children at the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum who often feel disconnected from their "professional" parents and who have similar difficulties forging close interpersonal relationships with their peers.
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Why is it important?
Children who bring emotional baggage to school are often labeled "difficult" or "disruptive" through no fault of their own. It is crucial that teachers and school principals understand why these children "act out", demonstrate inappropriate behaviour and struggle both with learning and making friends at school. Once educators come to know and understand what is going on in the lives and brains of these children, schools may become more active participants on their journey toward healing. In order to embark on this journey, those who design educational programming and staff training must provide appropriate support as well as courses for educators so that teachers and principals may put their understanding to good use and schools will discover better ways to accommodate the special needs of "damaged" children and translate current research into school policy for the benefit of everyone involved.
Perspectives
I wrote this paper after 16 years working closely with children from opposite poles of the socioeconomic spectrum. Many of these children suffered myriad difficulties in their school environments from learning disabilities to behavioural difficulties and involvement in bullying. Common amongst them was a very real difficulty in the ability to make friends. Seeing children labeled as “bad kids” and who became loners as a result of behaviours, over which they had little or no control, was heartbreaking. The future for these children is often bleak. Though strides have been made in schools and mental health centres to address their problems, there needs to be greater government intervention to address poverty and to ensure better training and support both for struggling parents and for educators. I hope to attract the attention of anyone who is in regular contact with children and youth and who cares about helping to raise them to become confident, sociable, honorable citizens. We all have a moral obligation to become advocates for change in government policies around social deprivation and disconnection which are at the root of anti-social behaviour.
Irene Gregory Wilkinson
Institute of Biomedical Sciences
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Why Some Children Come to School with “Baggage”: The Effects of Trauma Due to Poverty, Attachment Disruption and Disconnection on Social Skills and Relationships, January 2016, University of Alberta Libraries,
DOI: 10.29173/cjfy27147.
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