As we know, poverty is ubiquitous phenomenon all over the world. Some people continually complain that they are just getting the minimum salary, and the society does not help them to shake off poverty. In most of their life time, they have to face the reality to deal with the difficult situations that they find unfair. However, poverty affects children who have no abilities to get through it that is really unequal in the world. Children who live in poverty may lack confidence at school age because their outfit and house. These children also have no sufficient food to eat and less money to take the medicine during their illness. Therefore, the poor children may become weak and their health is threatened by ingesting less nutritious food. In addition, a poor family results in low parental education, which may affect children’s value in his whole life. All in all, the solution for these problems is high quality nursery schools should be set up to support poor families more in terms of raising the next generation for growing healthily.
Living in poverty, when kids get to school age they are looked down and bullied by their classmates. So these kids obviously have less confidence to face their life. They also recognize that the material condition of their lives is so important to have an equality view. Randall Williams said “I was ashamed of where I lived. I had been ashamed for as long as I had been conscious of class.” (Randall Williams, Daddy tucked the blanket, 2000, Page 1) He lived in a poor family that frequently moved. For him, he had no courage to invite his friends to his house. Children growing up in poor families may lead to a pessimistic attitude for lives. They have no dare to show themselves even though their skills or talents are standout. Moreover, without confidence, these children do not allow themselves to pursue their dreams.
For example, when I was at primary school, my parents also struggled in low-wage jobs. At that time, I was very interested in playing piano and it appeared in my brain over and over again. However, I had to give up my dream because my family could not afford to buy a piano and its lessons. I can clearly remember that piano played a dominant role in my childhood and I gave it up in despair. This experience generates the tragic view of life and losing the confidence of future. Therefore, impoverished children result in a negative impact of less-confidence. For this situation, I think the public child-care centre for poor children can be more helpful to them. All the kids come from similar families, and they are commonly communicating to each other without any prejudice.
Children raised in household not in possession of a good fortune are conditioned that they cannot receive the healthy diet and medical treatment. They are restricted in terms of less food to eat because it costs money. Every so often their wishes go beyond their patents’ means, and they have to come to terms with the resulting sense of rejection. Charles Oberg said “It directly influences the abilities of families to meet their children’s basic needs and provide societal minimums such as shelter, nutrition, and health care.” (Charles Oberg, The impact of childhood poverty on health and development, 2003, Page 2) What does he means? Children who live in poor family may not be provided the fundamental needs. So they have suffered from some diseases and starvation. These effects totally threat their young body which is growing up.
However, the high quality nursery school can exactly solve this problem. For example, the Head Start program is very popular to help poor children in terms of healthcare and medical guidance. The research from Health Care Institute said that “Healthcare costs could be reduced annually by at least $554 per family when Head Start parents are given easy-to-understand healthcare guidance that increases their health literacy.” (Ariella Herman, Ph.D., HEALTH CARE INSTITUTE, March 2007) So if the nursery school could provide this program for the basic parental help, poor children would not only suffer less pain from any diseases, but also they would save money to buy more nutritious food. On the other hand, some people argue this kind of investment is too expensive to implement.
But, according to the Health Care Institute, an average program investment is $60 per family, but the potential saving is getting 554.72. (Ariella Herman, Ph.D., HEALTH CARE INSTITUTE, March 2007) It is showed that this kind of investment is obviously worth, and more and more individuals benefit from this program. There is also an example from the Head Start program. One of the success stories was that Shae-Lynn almost died at 3 years old by seizures and medication. But her mother sent her to Benton Franklin Head Start. In the following year, she had almost cured and her study on longer was a problem. (Andrea Nelson, Benton-Franklin Head Start) The head Start totally changed her life. Moreover, every patents hope their children will have a reasonable environment to grow up rather than an unhealthy childhood, and the nursery school can figure it out.
The most important impact of poverty is on parenting, which influence in their kids during whole life. Specifically, young couples not only pay less attention to their kids, but also they not have the time for this because of struggling for their work. Therefore, many kids cannot feel loved from their parents. It is cruel for them because their little heart is so easy to break and hard to fix. Otherwise, children who are lacking of parenting are allowed to behave as they please. For example, Jo Goodwin Parker said “Poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won’t play with my boys. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want. I can already see them behind the bars of their prison instead of behind of the bars of my poverty. Or they will turn to the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved.”(Jo Goodwin Parker, What is poverty, 1971) It is precisely that kids need a good parenting to bound their behavior and awareness of code of ethic.
However, their parents entirely do not involve this recognition in terms of improving preprimary education and giving more attention. There is a statistics from the impact of childhood poverty on health and development that said “A 1988 study by Zill and Schoenborn found that children living in families with annual incomes below $10000 had a 25% higher rate of emotional and behavior problems than their counterparts from families with annual incomes over $40000.” (Charles Oberg, The impact of childhood poverty on health and development, 2003, Page 2)
It is indicated that children who raise in poor family tend to be more misbehaved no matter the numbers may change up or down for now. Parenting should assume the responsibility for this tendency. They cannot offer a bit more material things, but they should spend more time focusing on their kids in emotional ways. Above all, I believe that parenting classes should be established in nursery school to help them to do this. The society should fund this kind of parental support, because this is no longer a problem for individual families, but for society as a whole.
In short, firstly, I have to admit that the government has to allocate much money that comes from all society tax revenue to support poor children. Nevertheless, if children benefit from nursery schools, they who brought up by parents of low economic status usually grow up to be physically, mentally independent as same as the others and tend to be more confident, physical healthy and well-behaved. Throughout the whole childhood in nursery school they are tempered by the experiences of parent’s denial their requests and frugality is inculcated into their minds as a merit. They will have more confident to strive for their study and work with a strong body and good behavior. Therefore, if nursery schools could be established, the all society would benefit.
Reference
Herman, A. (2007).
Healthy care institute. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation)
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/ctr/jandj/HCI_exec_report_06.pdf Nelson, A. (n.d.).
benton-franklin head start. http://www.wsaheadstarteceap.com/success_stories.html Oberg, C. (2003).
The impact of childhood poverty on health and development. Healthy Generations, 4(1), 12.
http://www.epi.umn.edu/mch/resources/hg/hg_childpoverty.pdf
Parker, J. G. (1971).
What is poverty. America’s Other Children, p. 2. Williams, R. (2000).
Daddy tucked the blanket.