Written by Bedirhan Atabay
Affecting the future behaviors of many people, events in the childhood period of our life hold crucial prevalence. From those factors, stress stands out from them as it has many effects on the development of children differentiating from the struggles in learning and understanding basic subjects in school to the psychological damage to the children’s mental health (1,2). On the other hand, the effects of stress on children’s development include physically negative consequences such as diabetes and liver ailment (1). Understanding the effects of stress on children from a wider extent holds prominence both in order to be able to understand the children’s mentality and take precautions about it, and to expand the known information about the human brain.
To start from a brief point, the first requirement to understand the context of this is to acknowledge the division of stress. There are three separate groups of stress. First is positive stress, which is an essential part of the brain’s development. It can be explained as the visible increase in heart rate, and a notable increase in the amount of hormones (2). The second is tolerable stress. Tolerable stress might damage the children’s health unless the proper precautions are not taken (2). If the required support is being given by a caring adult figure, then the possible damages can be obstructed (2). Tolerable stress might happen due to various reasons, but the main ones are some traumatic events such as an injury or the loss of a loved one. If the amount of stress is even higher than the tolerable stress limits, then the stress can be categorized as toxic stress, which is our third type of stress. This type of stress occurs when the children suffer from a constant and immense amount of stress caused by many factors from facing a high amount of violence to mental illnesses (2). This kind of stress can affect the future of the children as its effects can keep existing in the period of adulthood, and have the aforementioned damages on the children. More than that, toxic stress causes many changes in the brain structure, and this change comes with damage to memory and possesses harmful effects on mood control (1). The effects are not limited to these, toxic stress can also damage and modify the DNA in the children’s cells (4).
As the effects of toxic stress on children are immense, a high amount of stress must always be avoided in children. Some of the proper precautions are creating a good sleeping environment for the child, encouraging children to exercise and make physical activities more often, encouraging the child to leave the house and spent some time outside, spending time with the child in a family environment, and spending time for some other activities such as drawing or painting can be pretty effective on reducing the effects of stress on the children (4,5). In the end, obstructing the way for high amounts of stress is possible by using these methods, and the level of stress must be kept at an average level in order to create a better environment for the children.
References:
Toxic stress: How the body's response can harm a child's development. Nationwide Children's Hospital. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/family-resources-education/700childrens/2017/07/toxic-stress-how-the-bodys-response-can-harm-a-childs-development.
Toxic stress. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2020, August 17). Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/toxic-stress/.
Daniel R. Weinberger Director of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and Professor. (2022, September 13). Extreme stress in childhood is toxic to your DNA. The Conversation. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://theconversation.com/extreme-stress-in-childhood-is-toxic-to-your-dna-99009#:~:text=Scientists%20know%20how%20dangerous%20toxic,the%20DNA%20in%20their%20cells.
Alvord, M., & Halfond, R. (2019, October 29). How to help children and teens manage their stress. American Psychological Association. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://www.apa.org/topics/children/stress.
5-Lyness, D. A. (Ed.). (2022, April). Childhood stress: How parents can help (for parents) - nemours kidshealth. KidsHealth. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/stress.html#:~:text=Make%20time%20to%20play%2C%20draw,positive%20emotions%20that%20offset%20stress.
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