Impacts of Adversity and Deprivation on Children’s Development

This article discusses the impacts of adversity and deprivation on children’s development, including physical growth, cognitive impairment, attachment disorders, and behavioral problems. It also explores the links between childhood deprivation, adversity, emotional development, and behavior, as well as the importance of parenting styles, attachment, resilience, and the child or adolescent’s own personal characteristics.

Running head: ADVERSITY AND DEPRIVATION ON CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT 1
Impacts of Adversity and Deprivation on Children’s Development
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Impact of Adversity and Deprivation on Children’s Development
Deprivation refers to a state of living in the state of neglect in provision of the basic
needs. Lacking something often is considered to be a necessity which is normally related to the
physical and the mental wellbeing. Deprivation may be linked to institutionalization, parental
problems, parental substance abuse, and poverty. The potential effects that deprivation has on an
individual includes the problems arising from physical growth, cognitive impairment, attachment
disorders, and behavioral problems. Severity situations of privation can be fatal for instance, in
the year 1989, in Romania after the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown, the thousands
of children who were warehoused in the Romanian orphanages and lived in the baby homes or
the institutions for persons regarded to be unrecoverable suffered a huge mental and physical
deprivations (Berk, 2013).
The early psychosocial deprivations may lead to the problems in the social working
which includes the behaviors which are indiscriminate behaviors, overactivity, and the issues
which form social relationships with the adults and the peers. The effects usually appear to
persist for some time after children are placed in the family with stable and supportive
caregiving. It is clear that the developmental delays and the discrepancies which result from such
deprivations have their origins in the compromised development of the brain.
Adversity can be defined as the adverse conditions which are marked by a misfortune or
distress. Adversity as experienced at the early stages of life such as poverty, illnesses, substance
abuse, mental illnesses, and the exposure to violence may have a great impact to the children
development. The more the adverse the childhood experiences are, the greater there is likelihood
of developmental delays among other problems. The at the childhood stage adversity childhood
may have some broad influence on development such as reproductive timing. The different of

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childhood adversity have been studied in terms of age at menarche, which includes the paternal
divorce, parenting characteristics, parental absence, parental mental illnesses satisfaction in
marriage, placement in adoption and foster care, death parents, and physical abuse. Usually, the
greater psychological adversity in childhood is often associated with earlier sexual maturity.
Most of the studies have evaluated single or small numbers of measures of psychosocial
adversity relating them to age at menarche, and have been limited to their ability to capture the
childhood psychological adversity. This has been important for the exposure to adverse
experiences in childhood have been unfavourable than encountering only one. There has been
less literature which has been carried out in childhood psychosocial adversity relating them to the
reproductive health in later stages of their life.
Links between childhood deprivation, adversity, emotional development and behavior
The adverse experiences during childhood are the significant determinants of the
psychiatric disorders, with its effects persisting across the entire course of life. The exposure to
deprivations of the environmental, maltreatment, family fights, and parental instabilities has led
to some lasting negative effects on the mental health. Some studies have consistently identified
the high rates of the childhood adversities among different individuals with the psychiatric
disorder, and data to confirm their associations (Berk, 2013).
The childhood adversities have been associated with new onset of disorders at the period
of adulthood. This has been even after accounting for effects during the early onset of the
disorders, and also the greater severity and chronicity of entire lifetime of mental disorders. The
effects of the adverse effects during the entire childhood on the brain development have since
been clear. The toxic stresses in the early life may lead to the important changes in different

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parts of the brain, which includes those which performs the learning and also the memory and
those which carry out the executive functions.
Through experiencing severe childhood deprivation and neglect may have lasting
psychological impacts into the early adulthood. Deprivation which includes neglect may have a
damaging effect to the children through the absence of the ideal environmental conditions and
also lack of enough opportunities for their development, somewhat through the perpetration of
abuses that may be from the caregivers. However, the effects of deprivation may be long-lasting
and have implications for opportunities which the children have in their later on life, and
incoming generations. By being exposed to the severity of the conditions at the period of
childhood may be associated with a lasting and a deep-rooted emotional, social, and cognitive
problems, which appear to be complex and also vary with time.
The effects of childhood deprivation of emotions may be dramatic. According to Berk,
2013, children having major personal interactions are likely to suffer from anaclitic depression,
and that morbidity levels were significantly high even when the nutrition and the medical
guidelines were followed. This is deprivation at its extreme. However, less extreme levels of
deprivation can also result in poor developmental prospects for children.
Human Services Professional perspective
Children should be given the necessary care which will promote the affirmative
emotional health and their overall welfare. Children should also be monitored their overall
mental health and given support when they need it, this includes the encouraging the sense of
self and the ability to manage the situations which appear stressful to them, emotional arousal of
temper, overcoming fears, and be able to cope up with the frustrations and disappointments

ADVERSITY AND DEPRIVATION ON CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT 5
arising from adversity. Their caregivers or parents should be the essential resources for their
children in the management of their emotions, managing and coping with behavior. They should
serve their roles through the provision of positive assertions and passing on respect and love and
also promoting the sense of security.
The children possessing the basic social abilities will, therefore, be able to maintain
affirmative relationships with their fellow peers and their caregivers. Social competence that is
interwoven with other developmental areas such as cognitive, emotional, and physical also may
involve the abilities of children to get along and also respect others, for example, those of
different races, religions, economic backgrounds, and sexual orientation. The basic social skills
will include an array of social behaviors for instance empathy, sharing, cooperation, and
perspective taking, which are greatly associated with the successes of children both in school and
other settings and can be nurtured by the parents or other caregivers. The skills are also
associated with the future success of their children across different contexts in their adulthood
Parenting & Family (Parenting styles, Attachment)
The support provided by parents may help in minimizing the risks arising from
internalizing certain behaviors like those which are associated with depression and anxiety and
can impair the children’s abilities to carry on well at the community, school, or home. The
symptoms such as extremity in helplessness, fearfulness, apathy, and depression arising from
adversity are major indicators of the emotional difficulties which are observed in younger
children experiencing insufficient parental care (Berk, 2013). Parenting styles will enable the
parents to respond positively to the needs of their children and be emotionally sensitive to the
problems their children undergo. The strong attachment to the parents will, in turn, helps their

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children become more secure, peaceful, and empathic human beings free from the psychological
struggles.
The attachment processes is another area which has great importance in the human
development and behavior. Attachment involves enduring the emotional ties to special people. It
is characterized by the tendencies to maintain the closeness during the adverse moments. It
enable us to understand the primary relationships of children and development influences on
them such as cognitive, social and emotional. The attachment process plays an important role in
human development and have an influence on the adult behaviors and also personality, this is
especially in response to the stressors. Some studies have proven that the childhood adversity has
been correlated greatly to the adult morbidities and mortality. The relationship between
attachment and childhood adversity has been complex and not interpreted fully, but includes the
socio-economic, psychological, and the intergenerational factors. In addition, some of the
adverse outcomes of health for parents for instance substance use or death may act as a risk
factor for the children.
The children who are not attached securely find it hard to have the confidence to explore
different environments, they tend to spend most of their time in protective measures. The fearful
children who do not explore do not develop or learn. Mary Ainsworth came up with a model of
testing the attachment of children to their respective caregivers which was referred to as a
‘strange situation’. The children who were left by were reunited to their caregivers. Those who
were distressed when they parted but easily consoled at their reunion and were described to have
had a secure attachment (Berk, 2013). The children who had insecure attachment who were
completely unable to be attached found it hard later to make attachments to others and

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sometimes undiscerning about getting themselves attached to adults and were at more risk such
as being subjected to abuse.
The child or adolescent’s own personal characteristics (Temperament & sense of self)
The temperament stability during infancy appear to be low and become moderate as they
become older. The long-term predictions from the early temperament characteristics are achieved
at the age of three years. The children styles of response often are best established at this age.
Children also appear to be consistent across different tasks which require effort. The stability of
temperament from low to moderate usually confirms that the experience may modify the
biologically centered temperamental behaviors.
The sensitive and assenting parenting helps in the regulation of negative emotions in
children. Parents handling by use of punitive and angry discipline methods undermines the
developmental progress of their children. Children who react with disobedience and defiance
often make their parents to be stressed. The tactics which appear to be coercive and erratic
discipline methods often brings about conflict. Parental support, sensitivity, and the clear
expectations reduces the possibility that the difficulties may persist leading to the social and
emotional difficulties.
The act of having a dominant mood, persistence, adaptability, threshold, activity level,
happiness, and self-regulation among other characteristics are very essential since it will help
maintain the children’s normal moods even though they may appear to be undergoing some
difficulties (Berk, 2013). The caregivers and their parents should devote an extra effort in order
to identify, accommodate, and modify the temperamental features of their children.

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Resilience
Resilience refers to the ability of children to cope up with the negative experiences they
go through. Children exposed to neglect or abuse have low self-esteem such as having positive
relationships with their family members and have the risk of having a much more serious adverse
outcomes when this condition increases. Factors contributing to the resilience of children
includes the child attributes such as independence and self-esteem, the family environment, and
the community resources. The adverse factors which influence child neglect or abuse and the
young people includes frequency and the duration of maltreatment and the occurrences of
different forms of abuse. The children who are resilient often come about with healthy
techniques of coping up with their situations and allows them to effectively navigate through
their adversity crises. Additionally, individuals who demonstrate resilience are the individuals
having optimistic attitudes and emotions. They are able to effectively handle the negative
emotions with positive ones.
Resilience is thus thought to be generally a positive adaptation, this is after the stressful
or adverse situations. When people are stressed up daily, it disrupts their internal and the
external senses of balance and presents challenges and also the opportunities. Resilience is thus
the integrated variation of the mental, spiritual, and the physical aspects of the set of either bad
or good circumstances (Berk, 2013). The clear sense of self which is able to maintain the
normative tasks of development which occur in different stages of life. Furthermore, resilience
has been studied to be focusing on those handle life with humor and hope despite some
significant losses. It is therefore important noting that, resilience does not only overcomes a
situation which is stressful but also comes out of the situation with a substantial functioning.

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Resilience thus allows anyone to recover from the adversity to be a much strengthened and
resourceful individual.

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Reference
Berk, L. E. (2013). Child Development. (9th Ed.). Illinois State University: Pearson.