stressors and a child's poverty

Poverty affects children academically, socially and emotionally. I am one to know. I grew up poor. I always wore hand me downs. I was small for my age, so the cloths would be extra big on me. this rarely happened, so most of the time I had to share cloths with my brother. Unless someone gave me named brand shoes, my shoes was bought from Kmart, pay less and sometimes the thrift store, while most people around me wore name brand shoes. I wore too small shoes. My hair was always in braids beads and nappy; never the latest hair styles or styles for my age.

Poverty affected my academics, because I was very subconscious, uncomfortable and other things was going on that I could not focus on my education. I was socially an outcast. Most kids shunned me. I remember crying cause none of the kids would play with me. I was an emotional wreck. I handle the stress by not handling the stress. I knew there was nothing I could have done to change anything. I would what I called zoombify myself. I would function enough to make it. I would drift off in to daydream land. I would pretend that I was not associated to my surroundings. I heard things going on around me. I would see things around me. If I was not directly involved with the any type of interactions, I would zoombify myself.


Here is a link that I found interesting.http://www.zoriah.net/blog/2009/04/kenya_child_poverty.html
 http://www.babylifetime.com/article/1607/child-poverty-in-south-africa-regions/  Children generally copes with poverty the best they could. African children are usually surrounded by other children in poverty, so everyone is usually all on the same page. Everyone looks for ways to find food, care for younger siblings, eat what they can and ways to work for food. In one of the photos a young girl used a trash bag to protect herself from the rain. Some children find food while others starves to death. However, Africa is working to resolve famine. I know for a fact, a C chancellor and vice chancellor from our local pccua came back from Africa. They are working to set up educational systems. But as for the children, they are left making adult decisions and having adult responsibilities to survive.