Therefore, aggressive behaviour with other children would be expected, because the child’s parents have failed to form a stable mother-child relationship in his home environment. Infants, like Calum and his sister, who are malnourished may also experience a condition known as ‘non-organic failure to thrive’. This refers to the child’s weight, height and development falling significantly below age-appropriate ranges, without apparent organic cause. Even with treatment, the long-term consequences can include continued growth problems, retardation and socio-emotional deficits (Wallace, 1996). All these factors will have combined to make Calum that which he has become.
This could lead to a child being repeatedly moved from family to family, preventing it from forming an attachment to one specific carer. Bowlby would have thought that all of the above scenarios would cause harm to a child’s social and emotional development, and would cause difficulties in the child’s future, relationship wise and it’s mental health, as he believed ‘mother love in infants is as important for mental health as vitamins are for physical health, and if an infant is separated from the mother, it might be at risk of behavioural disorder. Much research has gone into privation and children under institutional care, with Hodges and Tizard’s being the leading one. Their aim was to investigate the effects of early privation, by studying 65 children who had either come from dysfunctional families (where the child had been subjected to abuse or neglect) or had never had parents, and had therefore been institutionalised at a very early age (less than 4 months old). While in the
Abandoned children deal with their situation in their own way and are left with invisible scars that show up throughout their lives. Genevieve Van Wyden’s article, Understanding the Pain of Abandonment, states that “some children who have experienced a maternal abandonment will come to the mistaken conclusion that they are better off protecting themselves from any more hurt. They also decide that it’s better to do the abandoning than to go through the pain of being abandoned again.” Children who were victims of maternal abandonment then develop trust issues. They become reserved and do their best to avoid ending up in any sort of intimate relationship in general to avoid being hurt again. Similarly, in the story, Clemencia decides to build a wall and not let anyone have a deeply intimate relationship with her to avoid getting disappointed.
It will take a very long time for a child or young person to be able to trust the carer’s and their family and be able to feel settled in their new home as they may feel like an outsider and do not belong here. When children come into care it will affect them and other people, for the child or young person they will have mood swings, negative behaviour and sometimes regress back to an earlier age, for the parents they will feel angry and upset that their child has been taken away and don’t always co-operate with the authorities, as foster carer’s we will have added responsibilities and will have to deal with any issues that arise, such as consoling the child and make sure they feel safe in a calming environment. Our own children can be affected if
Family can have a big effect on a child’s development for example if the child is an only child he / she will not know how to socialise with other children. If the child has a parent who has a long term illness then he / she is likely to spend a lot of time alone, so he / she would be withdrawn and `hang back` from many activities, also this child probably would spend most of his / her time indoors and their physical development might be delayed. If the child is abused or neglected he / she might be afraid of adults or children that are loud and this could affect all areas of development as the child would not be able to concentrate. Poverty can affect children`s development as children who are in poverty, would get less opportunities, as their family will not be able to afford to buy books, pens, puzzles and sports equipment. Also if the family cannot afford to buy enough food, the child might have trouble concentrating and absorbing information.
Support and Services for Looked After Children and Young People One potential reason why a child/young person maybe looked after away from home is due to a parent or both parents become ill. When a parent of both parents become ill it may mean that they can’t look after there child or children properly or at all, so the child may be go to their next of kin to be looked after for example this can be a child’s Auntie or Uncle this is known as kinship care. However if a child does not have a next of kin or they may live to far away then a child may be put into temporary care, where when their parent or parents have fully recovered to the state where they are able to properly look after their child will then be returned to their parents, although these are only sort term reasons why a child will be looked after away from their care. However a long-term reason why a child maybe be looked after away from home is due to the parent or parents illness is permanent which means they will never recover from it for example a parent suffering from cancer and there illness deteriorates making it very hard for them to care for themselves let alone a child, this means that the child may go into a foster care home till they can find a suitable family for the child if there is no next of kin or they live to far away however if they do they may permanently go into kinship for a long term period. Another potential reason why a child/young person maybe looked after away from home is due to the child’s behaviour becomes too much for a parent/s to cope with for example a child repeatedly committing a criminal offence, whether it maybe short-term or long term.
This child may feel that he or she is the cause of the family problems. The scapegoat takes on the role of distracting the family from the central issue. In doing so, the parents begin to focus their attention on the scapegoat’s bad behavior rather than the central issue that started the problem. The scapegoat generally receives negative attention, resulting in making poor life decisions, thus making more negative decisions. Eventually, if other children are in the home, these children will resume the role of the scapegoat once the oldest child leaves home (Strehlow, 2012) Hero- The hero has a role in the family to distract from the central issue by telling the outside world that everything in the family is normal.
Social factors – An example of a possible social factor could be a young person having to deal with the separation of their parents. The young person being brought up in this setting living with one parent and visiting the other parent in a new home may have a negative impact on a child emotionally. This separation from having both parents around you in the same home to having only one parent in the family home can cause a child to feel very upset and alone during this transition. This will also cause a lot of confusion, insecurities including lack of trust to adults around them and becoming afraid of caring for adults in and around their family homes. Another example could be the young person offending or being involved in anti social behaviour.
In a controversial study of divorced families, Blakeslee & Wallerstein (1989) state that most children have the same initial feelings. "When their family breaks up, children feel vulnerable, for they fear that their lifeline is in danger of being cut". Early on, children develop a sense of how relationships are formed and how they are maintained by watching their parents. Sometimes divorce can have a positive affect on a child if what they are observing from their parents is fighting and abuse while they are together. As a result of their parents divorcing, most people have a stronger desire to fix what their own parents could not in their own adult lives.
If the parents or guardians are abusing the child or young person in any way then they will be removed from the family home as it’s not safe for them, this comes under the children act (1998, 2004). “Over half of looked after children in England and Wales became looked after because of abuse or neglect in 2011/12.” (www.nspcc.org.uk) Some children or young people may go into temporary foster care due to parental illness, which is when the parent becomes dependant their self and are unable to look aft6er their child. For example if a single parent falls very ill then she/he would be unable to take proper care on their dependent child therefore they would go into a foster care setting where they would be looked after until the parent was again able to care for the child. The child or young person may be looked after away from the family if the parents feel they are incapable of taking care of them and have requested that they be adopted or in a foster family. One example of this is financial difficulty as the parents do not have enough money to care for the child and give it even a reasonable standard of life.