Consequences of stress on a child's development

I have been fortunate enough to have not been affected by the stressors listed above.  My father, on the other hand, born in 1960 was very young when his brother went to Vietnam and died.  War was a stressor then, and is now for so many families.  My father has lived hating war. As much as he hates it, he cannot get enough of it – he watches endless hours of documentaries about Vietnam for what I think – is to catch a glimpse of his brother he hardly got to know – Francis A. Lautner, Born May 31, 1946 Died May 31, 1968. My dad was 8.  

My Grandma never got over the death of her son, and therefore things were most likely stressful for my dad and his siblings.  My dad said there were no real resources for him except for family, friends, and faith. Frank’s buddies would come and pick my dad up, take him for rides, do something with him, and keep him out of my grandma’s way. He would also stay with one of his older siblings (my dad was the baby and had cousins the same age as him!) for a week or more at a time.  “We didn’t talk about it much, but we could see what mom and dad were going through.  My bother built a memorial to put all of his medals, awards, pictures, and flag into.  We went to church every Sunday” (Personal communication, June 1, 2013).  My dad relayed that he can’t remember it being stressful and that there was no grief counseling or anything like that available – just friends, family, and church.  

Although my dad doesn’t think this time was stressful, he still has an emotional response to Vietnam and war in general.   Each of his brothers before him and his own father had enlisted for our country but he would never even have considered it knowing what my grandmother had already gone through.  He is proud of other family members that chose Military as their career, but when a recruiter came to my brother in high school, my dad words aren’t appropriate for this blog, but you can imagine NO. 

Being that Vietnam was a stressor for my dad, I chose Vietnam to see what stressors are for children there.  Stressors for children in Vietnam include: child poverty (extreme), unsafe drinking water, communicable disease, and malnutrition. 

To help with the extreme poverty facing Vietnam’s children, “with support from UNICEF, Viet Nam recently developed its own child-specific approach to poverty, based on basic needs like education, health, shelter, social inclusion and protection. Using this method to go beyond monetary poverty, rates show that, in 2006, about one third of all children below 16 years of age, or seven million children, can be considered poor” (UNICEF, 2013).   Most children facing extreme poverty are in the rural areas of Vietnam versus the city. 

J. Lautner. Personal Communication. June 1, 2013.

UNICEF. (2013). Children in Viet nam. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/vietnam/children.html