Written Communication 700b
The Effects of Poverty on Children
Poverty has always been the most concerning global issues for ages. According to UNICEF, one billion children worldwide are living in poverty, it means one in two children is; twenty two thousand children die each day because of poverty. The World Food Program has stated that “[t]he poor are hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.” This has severely impacted children. What is the definition of poverty? Basically, poverty means people do not have enough money to afford their basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. As a result, their children don’t have food to eat, clothes to wear, and places to live in. Nevertheless, poverty is not just a lacking of money, it relates on much issues. The World Bank Organization describes poverty as hunger, lack of shelter, being sick and not being able to see a doctor, not having ability to attend schools and even being illiterate, and ruining people’s future. There are many causes leading people to poverty, they are both personal and social causes. People who are unemployed, have poor educational backgrounds or live in debt easily become poor. Social conditions, such as economic crisis, inflation, and laws, also boost the number of poverty. Poverty is a serious global issue and one of the most difficult problems for all governments. Poverty has had many bad impacts on human beings, and one have to suffer the most terrible impacts is children in poor families, who are innocent and deserve to have a better lives.
The first effect of poverty on children is children’s increasing lack of education. Because their parents don’t even have enough money to afford the needs of food for the whole family, it is obvious that they cannot send children to go to school due to the tuition fees. Besides, children in poor families have to work when they are very young to earn money to help their families. As a result, children cannot go to school or drop their studies. Children’s dropout will lead to poor academic achievements. The situation will become more serious because children will be illiterate when they grow up. In the modern world, being illiterate leads being poor for sure because they only can do heavy work, yet be paid less money. Low- income children cannot escape from poverty. They may suffer a moneyless life and also push their future generations into the cycle of poverty.
Another point is that poverty can increase children’s mental problems. The Connecticut Commission on Children released a report named “Children and the Long-Term Effects of Poverty”. It reported some findings that kids living in poor families often have more emotional and mental issues than other kids. The more shocking finding is that kids with poor and stressful mothers can suffer from hostile behaviors, problems in relationships with other kids, and trauma due to abuse in the future (June 2004, p.5). Poor children don’t have any childhood. Instead of going to school and then playing games or playing sports, all they have to do is working to earn money. This has made children to face too many life difficulties while they are still young. Therefore, they can suffer from mental health problems, such as pressure, stress, depression, very often. Social emotional problems are also a problem that low- income kids have to face. Because they are poor, they don’t have any self-confidence and they don’t dare hang out with other kids. Some poor children always have a thought that others scorn them, so they will act hostilely towards society. Moreover, they may be neglected by their families. Because their parents must work hard to afford their basic needs, they cannot have time to take care of their kids.
Children’s physical health is also impacted seriously by poverty. As their families don’t have enough money to buy food, children will suffer undernourishment and be underweight. They may even get many severe nutritional diseases, or substance