Deprived children

Bhushan bazaz
Every child has a story each story is different. The reasons for its differences are many. Like the  ever widening circles made by a stone  dropped into a pond, the Childs life spears out from the moment of his birth in the successive circles of his relationship with his family and others who care for his needs, with his neighbours, his school, his community. Along with the physical heritage of his genes and chromosomes, each of these plays its part in shaping of his life, each is important in determining his character, his thoughts, his behaviour, his personality.
For many children development and growth do not come as the smooth and simple process. We like to think it is, within their lives there is an interruption in the ever widening circle of relationship with others. Something or a combination of things throws them off the normal path of development skews their understanding of the world about them and leads into difficult behaviour pattern.
Children are the most vulnerable section of the society. Their development is according to the situations in which they are put into. Different situations make the story of each child its own.
Here begins the story the very wealthy child does not necessarily belong to a family of great fame or extreme social power. The level of education is often not particularly high. They are sat apart solely by possessing or belonging to a family that possesses immense amounts of money. There are several more or less unique features that great wealth visits on the circumstances of child rearing. These features in turn have definite effects on development; of course, all of the innumerable variables that may impinge on a developing child may influence the children of the rich.
 The wealthy child is usually cared for to a great extent by servants. The servants are invariably from lower social economic class. They are always clearly in the position of employees. Inevitably there is some transmitting of values but not systematic transmitting of family concern and roles. Notably there is a failure in the transmitting of the family traditions, values and role expectations.
The values that are transferred by servants are often a source of confusion to the development of rich. Another obvious problem that may be produces by the excessive delegation of child rearing to servants involves considerable envy that they often fell. This envy when sensed, may also further enhance deep feelings of shame in the child, or may produce a state of alienation. It is not unusual to observe that, while all the child’s materials needs fastidiously cared for, the servants retain a hostile aloofness. When this situation is not corrected or mitigated by family influence, a wide variety of emotional illness and ego defects may develop.
A second consequence of the rich children’s state of emotional deprivation involves a tendency to develop inadequate ego structures that can contain anxiety. Very often one encourages an appallingly low degree of frustration tolerance. As with serious degree of mental illness, this state of affairs may be masked by an environment that is uniquely structures to serve the child. Rage reactions are sometimes encountered when circumstances force the children of rich outside the sheltered environment.
A final circumstance influencing development is the frequent absence of exposure to a peer group, where the messages from the servants are confusing, and those from the family are absent or inadequate to a group of other children might be expected to fill in some of the vacuum. Unfortunately the children of rich tend to be deprived of that saving factor. They are often geographically isolated from other children. Where there is exposure to a group, it is often to a group of similarly impaired children.
By the time they may encounter a more varied group at a private school or college, much damage has already been done. Excessive exposure to servants, inadequate exposure to parents and the absence of a healthy peer experience are the three most damaging effects that great wealth may have on children.
Children of poverty-since the children of poverty live in disadvantaged circumstances, their lives are filled with a variety of events which children of the privileged do not have to face. Children of lower socio-economic status are at much greater risk than middle and upper economic children. It is in the countries with the lowest income levels that one finds the highest mortality rates, particularly among children. A high incidence of infectious diseases, poor level of nutrition and a low school enrolment ratio characterizes these same countries.
A family that is too poor simply cannot afford adequate shelter and clothing for the child. Often clad in rages, the majority of children wander bare-footed over disease infected ground. These conditions and the resulting high incidence of communicable diseases among children are closely associated with poverty. Moreover, it is often necessary for the child of poor family to work during many of the years he should be in the school. Although child’s right to an education has been almost universally recognized 45 per cent of the world's children lack education.
Poverty frequently forces women to abandon their children in the home in order to find work outside.  She may have to travel miles to work, and her children may be almost completely neglected, resulting neglect of children most frequently leads to pre delinquency and adolescent delinquency.
Child labor is prevalent in the lower socio-economic group because of the lack of appreciation on their part of the role education plays in improving life and living conditions of children.  Children suffer because of the illiteracy and ignorance of their parents, who, only think about the present time, which is their sole concern and worry.  They are fully satisfied what they gain by the earning of their children.
These children work in highly exploitative and unhealthier conditions possessing the barest rudiments of education, these children have to work at the humblest level.  They can be found working as coolies, hotel workers, rag pickers, shoe blacks, and newspaper sellers.
 The middle class families which have lower income keep little boys and girls as domestic servants from 8 to l4 years age group which is the age of eating and playing.  They get little pocket money and food from their, masters.
Another group of children is encouraged to learn family arts and crafts at a very young age, since the tender flexible and pliable body in childhood can easily learn the co-ordination of limbs and mental adjustment that is necessary for learning skills.  It is imposed upon the child against his wishes, at the cost of learning and play, which are necessary for the full bloom development of his personality.  In fact the labour of children is very cheap in comparison to that of men, and ensures more margin of profit over less investment.  Nobody cares to know who these children are and why they are in this pathetic state.
 A large proportion of children, particularly the young girls help their parents in weeding, harvesting and thrashing in the fields, collecting fuel and water, dusting and sweeping the house, looking after younger siblings; and helping their mother in cooking and serving.  A girl child is doubly oppressed and exploited on account of her being a girl, she has to do outside wage labour as well as the house work.
In recent years the Government of India has initiated several legislative measures to regulate and to contain employment of child labour. But it is evident that legislative measures have only a limited role to play.
The role of shame is very important in child development.  Disgraced families are a serious handicap to their child members, particularly in their social contacts.  Outstanding illustrations of such families are those in which imprisonment, illegitimacy, drug addiction, chronic drunkenness and so on occurs. There is a loss of self assurances and stability for the child and social isolation of the family. The child from the disgraced family may be avoided, or snubbed by friends or dropped by the clique or disbarred from the play ground. Frequently, the isolation is imposed upon the child before he is of an age to have developed the spiritual resources which could enable him to cope with such situations.
The children of alcoholics suffer from far more parental violence and personal threats than do children of non-alcoholic families. It is a crisis in a family that can last for the entire childhood of some children. They have been denied most of the joys of this time of life, not because of an accident or fate or an unpredictable crisis, but because of the parents abused alcohol. The abuse of alcohol is doubly sad in a family for this reason, it can be controlled.
Physical abuse is a great killer of six to twelve months old infants than any malformation. Child abuse is invariably a problem of the lower socioeconomic class Child abusing parents are abnormal, psychotic criminals or retarded.
Sexual abuse in children is defined as involving children in sexual activities that they cannot fully understand, to which they can not give informed consent and which violate our socially accepted family roles. It may include pedophilia, sexual preference for children, rape and incest All of these are truly sexual exploitations because they involve children in situations in which they can in no sense accept or even understand the responsibility for their actions. It is the child who is robbed of appropriate sexual exploration, behavior and emotional developments. The children are caught in a conspiracy of silence in which any effort to seek help is as personally humiliating as it is freeing. The result is depression, isolation, shame, and guilt and over-all loss of self esteem for the child involved.
These are the children we call the troubled or the emotionally disturbed children whose potentialities are diminished or lost through emotional problems too deep to be resolved without specialized help. Some of them are seriously ill more children are, infact, lost to society through serious emotional illness and mental illness than through any child's major diseases. Some are not so deeply affected - yet without attention to their need, they flounder through childhood and through life, failing in school, suffering from agonizing shyness or frightful temper tantrums, having night mares or hanging on to babyish ways of behaviors. For still others, apparently not "troubled", the unresolved confusions and anxieties of childhood will lay the ground for, at best, a life of frustration and unhappiness, at worst, for mental illness in adult life, over neglect of these children is shameful.
Troubled child is the loneliest child in the world, unable to enjoy his own good abilities, seldom lucky enough to have playmates, rarely receiving understanding care from those who love him most.
Stress in children - Stress has been treated as an adult problem, as if children were immune from its effects. Nothing could be further from the truth. The idea that childhood is a time of care freeness, happiness and pleasure is simply not accurate. Normal, healthy children, just like adults, can encounter stressful situations almost daily. Because adults do not see through the eyes of children, events such as school, athletes, or illness are not thought to be very demanding. Yet, these and other events can be sources of great stress.
The harmful effects of stress on children are only beginning to become apparent. The dramatic increase in child suicide, drug abuse and violence are only a few of the signs of the stress. They are, admittedly, the most dramatic manifestations of stress, but we see them as the tip of the iceberg. Just as most of the iceberg lies below the water, undetected so too can stress. If parents do not note dramatic signs, such as drug abuse or suicide attempts,   they often believe every thing is a fine. This can be a dangerous attitude for at least two reasons. First, the effects of stress are cumulative, “little”, seemingly minor problems can build up over time and have profound effects on physical and mental health. Second, children may lack the intellectual skills necessary to determine what is causing stress or what to do about it. They may lack the power and ability to make any change in a stressful situation. It is imperative for parents to learn about potential sources of stress that occur in the daily lives of children. Furthermore the parents must become familiar with the symptoms of stress and help their children learn how to deal effectively with stressful situation.
Most vulnerable stresses, for example death, illness, hardship or war, may adequately affect normal personality development, but it is suggested that their situations will cause greatest distress to children who are vulnerable either as a result of neural impairment or as a result of insecurity due to deprivation of parental approach.
 Never before have there been so many changes, affecting so many peoples within a short time, as within the past quarter century and their pace and magnitude seem destined to increase. These changes made their impact on children. The increasing contact between different cultures that characterize our era gives rise to important shifts in social values. The instability of the family in times of social transition, for example may lead to the wide spread abandonment of children. Juvenile delinquency is also common when the stability of the family is broken. The family circle is narrowed kinship thus beyond the circle of the immediate family are weakened and children are deprived of the love of extended family which is essential for their well development.
Residential mobility breaks the continuity of life. This has its meaning for all the members of the family, but one who understands the concreteness of child thinking and feeling will quickly sense that the physical symbols of family unity and continuity mean more to him than to any but the very old members of the family. Adults are far too prone to overlook the fact, with glib references to the “adaptability of the child". The house and street where one lives are symbols, too, of stability. Their unchanging continuance simplifies life and the child, especially when younger, is not fitted to grapple with complexity.
 Residential mobility often means change of school for the child. That is apt to precipitate many problems; involved are adjustment problems to new school, new teachers, new courses, tasks and methods. The child never lives nor studies in vacuum. Change of residence means also change in friendships, social contacts and social acceptances. There is the break with old friends. To try to hold on to them may impede the child's adjustment to new situations, to terminate the contact may constitute a real loss.
The children have to suffer because of colour, creed and caste with no fault of theirs. There is the immediate problem of social contacts and acceptance in the community and the school system the child enters.
 War and violence, sustained cruelty and the threat of war claim a high among 'children.  The children ate affected firstly by the disappearance of that closet to them who are bringing them up and secondly, by the general transformation of the social environment, with all the psychological consequences due to the war. A parent cannot shield his child; a civilization cannot defend and protect its young. Very small children have deep seated fears about destruction of body parts they are completely aware that parental protection has its limits. Any fear they show is real fear for them. “What will happen to me if it comes?"  Will I be separated from my family?  It has highly traumatized effect for his whole life and has to live with it poor child;
Children and TV - Much of the content of children's programme is of violent nature.  TV Programme includes murders, attempted murders, suicides, gun fights, people pushed or falling of cliffs, raving psychopaths, robberies, hired killers, it brings into home all types of violence, formerly felt to be bad for children.  TV violence is related to juvenile delinquency and crime.   An increasing number of juvenile crimes are committed by means of similar ways to those the juvenile have seen on TV.  Television creates reality as does no other medium of communication.  The realistic nature of TV makes it more difficult for a child to understand what is "pretend" and what actual life is. Some children are emotionally upset by the violent programmes, while others become callous to mans inhumanity to man.  Much of the content of children having to do with grown ups, world events, the future Is said to create anxieties in children who are too young to cope with these subjects on an adult level.  The consensus of several studies is that children’s reactions vary from mild anxiety to night mares.  Children's attitudes, values and beliefs can be formed and changed by the impact of TV, especially in such areas as war, gambling, capital punishment, minority group’s ethnic groups and certain occupations.
The sad and unhappy wheels of each child can be changed into a life -full of happiness and joy if the man and woman realize the child is the greatest asset, his welfare should be the parents and country's interest. Childhood is generally spoken of as the happy, carefree time of life. Every child should have a healthy, intelligent parents fully prepared in advance for the responsibility of parenthood.   Parents should have income sufficient to provide everything necessary to give him a secure home life necessary for his growth and development.
Every child should have chance for education commensurate with his individual capacity, needs and interests and a chance to play and to develop a feeling, adequacy and self-sufficiency as a part of a group. Every child should be protected from exploitation in premature and harmful labour. Children in poor health should have opportunity for care and treatment.
The world of child will be different if he receives a sympathetic ear to whom he can pour out his troubles, a living heart that makes a child feel always welcome.