Impacts on Early Emotional Development

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

UNICEF is a United Nations agency responsible for supporting and providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide. The agency is committed to ensuring superior protection for the most disadvantaged children, including victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation, and those with disabilities.

Many factors can affect family functioning and child development, such as poverty, substance abuse, illness, exposure to violence, unemployment, marital discord, separation from parents, and adapting to a new culture, and learning a new language. Poverty is one of the significant factors that rob children of the things they need most for survival and development, like nutrition, education, health services, water, and sanitation. As children grow, the consequences of poverty are compounded, taking an enormous toll on their well-being and their ability to build a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities. UNICEF supports more than 150 countries' efforts to assess financial and multidimensional child poverty by addressing child poverty through policies, programs, and budgets with all Governments to recognize this issue as a national policy priority and protect children from its most devastating effects.

United Nations Children's Fund Thailand (UNICEF) was the website I selected to analyze the poverty issue among children (https://www.unicef.org/thailand/). I decided to select Thailand as a country to study in "poverty" through UNICEF because it is the country that I was born and growing up in. I was fortunate to have a family that can financially support my education and other developmental needs but most of the children there do not. Some of my friends in public school were from low-income families. They were struggling on daily basis, I remember that I donated my school and shoe uniforms that were too small for me to my neighbor children because they could not afford to buy new uniforms. Therefore, I would like to research and get to know how UNICEF supports closing the poverty gaps in Thailand.

Chllenges in Thailand

Thailand has made great progress in economic development over the past few decades. Unfortunately, economic growth has not been equally experienced by all citizens. Some regions and groups of people have been left behind. The 2015-2016 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey on the situation of children and women in Thailand found that children and young people living in rural areas, children living in families headed by a non-Thai speaker, children from poor households, and children whose parents have a low level of education were generally more likely to lag behind other children of their age in health, education and overall development outcomes.

Poverty affects children disproportionally. While the overall poverty rate in 2014 was 10.5 percent, the poverty rate for children aged 0–17 was 13.8 percent. The north-eastern and southern regions have the highest child poverty rates in Thailand. Some two million children in Thailand lived in households with incomes below the poverty line in 2014. Poverty deprives children of their basic rights and makes them more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. It deprives them of proper nutrition, good health, safe water, and quality education. This situation passes from generation to generation.      

    

This week's study has deepened my knowledge regarding the poverty issue in children. As an early childhood professional, I realized that poverty could tremendously affect children's development and learning because of the lack of quality education, parent support, appropriate nutrition, and more. I work with Military families with various income salaries from less than 20k to over 150k annual salary; however, we treat all children the same with excellent care and lesson plan. Also, we provide additional resources to lower-income families to help their children receive excellent care and support that they all deserve, such as the military resources, head start, early intervention for early childhood, and more. Moreover, our childcare program participates with the USDA food in-school program that supports and provides free quality food for children, including breakfast, lunch, and snacks. All parents in our program do not need to pay for the food cost through the childcare program, which can reduce their family expenses. Although the poverty gaps remain, we are all now monitoring, addressing, and being aware of this issue to support the children and families as they all deserve a quality education and well-being and also create awareness of diversity to prevent any bias or stereotype toward lower-income families. 

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). (na). The 1st Three: Thailand’s Progressive Road Toward Universal Child Grant Coverage. Retrieved https://www.unicef.org/thailand/media/3806/file/The%201st%20Three:%20Thailand%E2%80%99s%20Progressive%20Road%20Toward%20Universal%20Child%20Grant%20Coverage.pdf