Blog 4
Stressors
·
Stressors that influence a child: I chose Racism
from the list as this is something I hold very dear to my heart. I feel very
strongly about racism in the world, with my family and around my friends. I do
not like racist people, racist saying and I will not tolerate being around any
negative comments regarding any race.
·
Share an experience: I grew up in what I call a “rainbow family”. My mother is Hispanic as is my biological
father. My brother is half Hispanic and half African American. My sister is
half Hispanic and half Caucasian. There was no room for any negative race
issues. We never knew any different as children. Then we moved here to small
town Parker which does not have a big population as it is and the percent of
African Americans is even smaller. Well my first experience with racism that I
can recall happened the summer of 1990. We moved into a park and they were
building a pool. The community was very excited. Once it was done we all were
ready to swim. But the owner told my brother that the pool was not for colored.
I did not understand at that time I was nine and we had never been in this
situation before. I told my mom and that is when the stuff hit the fan. The
owner of the park grew up in a different time but that does not excuse his
behavior. I will never forget that day. We never used the pool.
·
A region I would like to know more about: I
chose Canada as my husband’s family is from Canada.
·
Stressors that impact children in this region:
the stressors are different from that of the list. I think the obvious
stressors are poverty and war. But in Canada the focus I found was more on the
children and the development process. For example the stressors I found are:
being hurried, transitioning, new beginnings, and changes in care givers.
·
What is being done to minimize the harm: The
psychology foundation of Canada has developed a program called Kids have stress
too. One of the techniques used in this program is called stop, look and
listen. This is designed to make parents more aware of their children. Please
check out this site, it is really awesome.
