Consequences of Stress on Children’s Development

No one I know has had to overcome a childhood with any of the listed stressors for this assignment.  The only incidence I’m aware of that possibly qualifies comes under the violence category, but not in the form of shootings or street violence.   My mother has had to deal with being a victim of incest as a child.  I don’t know many of the details because she hasn’t ever talked about it.  My father told me about it several years ago when my mother was having a trying time in her life.  I do know she compensated by dropping out of high school and marrying when she was 16 in order to leave her home.  I think the experience is responsible for the depression she has experienced in her life and some of the negative feelings she felt toward her mother and brothers.

I researched childhood mental health in Iraq.  I recently heard an Iraqi woman, who along with her husband and children immigrated to Des Moines, Iowa, speak about their escape in the middle of the night from their home in Baghdad to a family member’s house in Israel.  They lived and worked in Israel for a few years and then came to the United States.  They have three small children and I have always wondered what impact the situation in Iraq and the circumstances surrounding their leaving would have on the children.  

The article I found was published in 2010.  The war in that country resulted in malnutrition, child trafficking, kidnapping, poor educational expectations and death of all ages among many other atrocities.  These by-products of war definitely affected the mental health and feeling of security the children in that county have but the researchers speculated that the beginning of these stressing situations began years before.  Public health services for children under five years of age are few and far between, especially in the remote areas of the country.  Child mortality for this age group is the highest in the Middle East. 

The authors of the study stated that help for the mental problems for children and adolescents in Iraq was hard to come by because of inadequate human resources and research facilitators, poor funding, and safety threats to the researchers.  Where past study results do exist, post traumatic stress symptoms were evident in 14% of children in Baghdad and 30% of children living in Mosul in 2005.  Also, in 2005, 22% of children had anxiety disorders, 18% had behavioral problems, 14% stuttered and 13% had depression.  In 2006, 15% of school children in the southern town of Nassiriya were found to have ADHD.   Mental health issues in the Arab countries are misunderstood and are even met with indifference, especially with children.  There are very few psychologists, psychiatrists, or mental health facilities in the country.

The study writers suggested that Iraq develop a policy specifically targeted at improving the mental health of children and adolescents in their country.  The recommendations for the leadership in Iraq were to:

1)      conduct a needs assessment

2)      get evidence of what is already successful

3)      work to get agreement with all agencies to compile a policy

4)      work with other countries to get ideas for the policy

5)      develop a policy that had goals, visions and values for children

6)      decide which agency would be responsible for which action of the policy

Once the policy is in place, education about good mental health equaling good physical health should take place as well as addressing the various stressors in a war region.  Legislation, evaluation, and implementation of the policy would put childrens’and adolescents’ mental health at the top of the priority list.

Reference

Al-Obaidi, A., Budosan, B., & Jeffrey, L.  (2010).  Child and adolescent mental health in Iraq:  current situation and scope for promotion of child and adolescent mental health policy.  Intervention, 8(1), 40-51.  doi: 10.1097/WTF.0b013e3283387adf