Stresses come in all forms. Children seem to be the most affected by stressors on the family. Chaos is a stress that I see in children at school all the time. By chaos, I mean that the children may move around alot or stay at a lot of different places. They do not have a stable home. Some children stay with parents or a parent one night, the other parent another night, or grandparents another night all in the same week. The moving around during the week is rough on children. They come to school not prepared because someone didn't help them get their homework done or they may have left their schoolwork at another family member's house. I see this pretty often. It is really rough on the child when the parent/grandparent disagrees with how to discipline the child. Teachers sometimes have different relatives giving them different directions and that causes major chaos. The child ends up getting away with a lot because the teacher doesn't want to get in the middle of family drama. Teachers have to just do their best and make the child follow classroom rules and the child gets in trouble for not having their homework done, for example.
Water Wars in South America
South America has 29% of the world's fresh water reserves according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Thus, the government displaces families at will to get to the water or get the water where it's needed. This affects children's lives. By losing their home, children and families become homeless. People are going to war to fight over these waters and some are dying over it. The government is displacing water to different mines around South America. The government is taking the public waters and using it for mining instead of letting the people use it for drinking and farming. The people are trying to fight back, but it's really difficult against big corporations. All the fighting is causing chaos and stress on the people and families trying to make a living. The government says it puts the publics need for water first, but that isn't what the people are seeing. Water for mining has become priority for the government because of the financial gain.
These are good posts, Niki.
ReplyDeleteAs educators, in addition to what you pointed out, sometimes, we also need to reach out to the parents and the other adults in the child's life. This is to have a common ground in helping the child. There has to be consistency among the adults to avoid confusion in the child.
Aloha Niki,
ReplyDeleteI see these types of stressors at work as well. Military families move frequently, but also family members too. Deployment is hard on the whole family and with both parents deploying when one returns the other leaves, children are not able to communicate how they feel during these times. When a child is especially attached to one parent than another, anger and violent behaviors that I see a lot in classrooms. While these family members are deployed for long periods of time their spouses get lonely too. Many families return to struggle through their marriage and get divorced a short time after. This leaves their children again going through some tough times that they definitely don't understand. Then I see what you shared in your post. Children staying with one parent for a couple days then another or grandparents and even uncles and aunts. My heart goes out to these young children.