Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

Wanting to continue to learn more about my mother’s experiences growing up I decided to ask her if she had any stressors in her childhood.  I was glad to find out that like me, my mother did not experience any major stressors in her young life.  Although there was one thing I had heard her mention before that could count as a stressor, rattlesnakes. 

When my grandparents brought their 7 children from Mexico to the United States their first stop was Texas.  They remained there for about 3 years until they moved to California.  The dry Texan landscape and weather made life hard.  Temperatures were highest at noon and everyone was always looking for cool places to escape from the sun, including the rattlesnakes of the area.  My mother remembers being very afraid at first.  While walking to the bus stop she would walk behind her brother because she was afraid of running into one.  The snakes would hide under the beds and even come into the shower that was outside. 

As a result the children learned to always look under the bed before going to sleep and always check the shower first for rattlesnakes before going in.  They never killed them but always kept a broom or stick nearby so that they could shoo the snakes out the door.  They learned rattlesnake behavior and knew when to stay away.  My mother mentioned that her fear went away because she got so used to living with them and thankfully no one was ever bitten by one.  The family learned to cope with living with rattlesnakes by accepting that the snakes were just a part of the living environment. 

Although snakes in your home does sound pretty terrifying there are worse stressors in a child’s life.  I decided to research the stress of immigration on children.  My mother and her family were able to come over with little stress because my grandfather and uncles had all already been working in the US and were allowed to bring the rest of the family over because of it.  This has become harder to do because of strict immigration laws making the pursuit of the American dream difficult and dangerous. 

Poverty is at the stem of immigration.  So is violence with the drug wars in Mexico and other countries creating an increase in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children.  The poverty in South and Central America is so devastating that families risk their lives migrating thousands of miles through Mexico to make it to the USA.  Even more unsettling is the fact that a lot of these immigrants are unaccompanied children.  I recently saw a documentary titled Which Way Home which describes the journey that about 8,000 children a year make in hopes of reaching the US (USCRI, 2011).  They risk abandonment from their smugglers, dehydration, starvation and being crushed by “The Beast” the freight train that travels North through Mexico (HBO Documentary Films, 2009).  On top of all that there is always the stress of getting caught and being deported.  The way the children cope is by focusing on their dream of reaching America to work and be able to send money to their families back in the homeland. 

There are organizations that set up safe houses for immigrants where food, water, shelter and medical care are given.  But these houses also provide knowledge about what obstacles are to come on the journey.  The information is given in order to warn and discourage people but it seldomly works.  The hope is too great which makes the risks seem small.  Even after making it into America there is the stress of living undocumented, invisible, adapting to a new country, language and the fear of deportation.

References

HBO Documentary Films (Producer). (2009). Which Way Home. [Documentary Film].

USCRI United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. (2011). Emmy-Winning Film Documents the Journey of Child Migrants. [Web Article]. Retrieved from http://www.refugees.org/refugee-voices/migrant-children/which-way-home-documentary-on.html