In medical terms, the definition of stress is most clearly described as the body’s reaction to stimulus, which creates mental and physical effects on equilibrium in the body. Most thoughts when talking about stress are automatically referred to adults and their day to day schedules. However this statement is not true. Despite these false allegations, childhood is one of the most important times throughout life when it comes to stress management. Many of the events adults go through, are no different then the ones children experience in their own lives. The age at which these events occur determines the side effects of stress for later on in life. The earlier that stress occurs, the range for threatening side effects only grows higher. Stressors can come from all shapes and angles within childhood. The more chronic stressors become the more health issues they cause, due to their duration into adulthood. It is important to know where theses stressors come from, what physical and mental problems they cause the body and what actions can be done to prevent further chronic stress in life. Stress is a disease present throughout the entire population, with different levels for each individual. The protection of the body is one of the most important things in life, yet this is only made harder with this high presence of stress in children around the world.
Stress is a mental and physical process that all people go through everyday. Whether it is problems at work or it is as simple as being stuck in traffic when there is a rush to get to a specific spot. Despite how simple the definition may seem, there is a much more important meaning behind the word stress. Stress can be more complexly be defined in three different ways. The first way to define stress is stimulus. This means that each individual will produce a different response to stress, stress that has occurred over a long period of time will no longer be stress, and the amount of hormones that are released will steadily increase(Charlton). The second way that stress can be defined is by response. When defining stress by response it talks about things such as how stress is the non-specific response to demand and troubles only come due to the demand(Charlton). The third way to define stress is when both of these factors are combined. When both stimulus and response and joined together, stress becomes a more crucial variable towards both factors(Charlton). Since so many different things play an effect on stress, it is important for the everyday person to understand what stress can do. The long lasting effects of stress begin from the days that the person was born until the final days in the death process. The importance however, is in the first few stages of life before stepping into adulthood. These years are some of the most significant in the early development of the body.
The first stage of stress begins from the very first second that a baby is born. Despite how this may sound when a newborn is first exposed the world, it is already feeling the affects of stress on its body. However, the fact that the newborn is still just an infant the effects of stress are much harder to detect. Eugene Arnold stated in one of his books that, “Physiological indicators of stress, such as increased serum cortisol levels, are also difficult to interpret because of the difficulties inherent in obtaining the serum from the infant”. Scientifically speaking there is no way for doctors to know how the baby reacts when it is exposed to different aspects of stress. No research to this date has really been performed to test these different serum cortisol levels, due to how uncomfortable it would be for the baby. An example of one of these attempts would be something such as extracting urine from one of the babies. Despite that this procedure may still be able to give final results, it is not worth the emotions it would put the baby through. Despite this challenging process, it is still well known that babies are indeed exposed to many of the same factors of stress. The exposure to these things is critical for the development of the baby’s brain. The biggest factor into the development of the baby is the environment it is exposed to as it grows. A child needs to be exposed to positive reinforcement and many things to make its brain activity start. Many times this come right from the babies toys, interactive behavior with it’s parents, or as simply as a trip to the grocery store. Positive stimulus is necessary for correct development of the child’s brain and these positive attributes come through the colors, textures, and environments associated with these things. “The infancy years are not determinative; cognitive processes play a major role in emotional and behavioral responses; temperamental features are influential, but through the interactions as much as individual reactivity; much behavior is context-related; many of the links in development are social rather than individual; continuities over time are usually indirect rather than direct; and fluidity in functioning continues right into adult life”(QTD: Rutter). In edition to this, the many challenges the environment throws at the child creates stress within itself. Illness and the process of birth can be very hard on the baby, thus creating stress within it. For example when the baby is born the second it has been pushed from its mothers womb, the light alone is enough to cause problems. As it developed within its mother it wasn’t exposed to light to to the high amount of fluid in the womb. The stimuli that are created from light exposure become a very hard process for the baby to battle through. Newborns have to show an exceptional adaptability to the new exposures that birth brings forth. The overstimulation of these events can be very costly for the babies. When the babies are put into the NICU, the process that is supposed to keep them healthy and safe when apart from their mothers, might actually be apart of this overstimulation. The bright fluorescent light bulbs that are used for NICUs may be causing damage to babies’ retinas. The brightness from the bulbs messes with the diurnal rhythm within the baby, and the process that is used to treat this disease often create retinal damage. Also the sounds around the NICU such the opening and closing of the incubator door cause stress issues. The loud sounds created unintentionally cause the baby to cry, which eventually leads up to loss in the oxygen level measured through the skin. The loss of oxygen causes pressure within the babies head on the brain, which can be very stressful and painful for the baby(Arnold 179). There is a difference that a different environment will create however. If the baby is in an environment that is neglecting and depriving of the babies ability to interact, stress moves over to the factor of a decrease in cognitive and social development. The term for this type of neglect in a baby’s development is referred to as NOFTT, or nonorganic failure to thrive. NOFTT entail leads to failure to thrive or FTT. Failure to thrive has been historically known more just as maternal deprivation, and any study on this subject was only performed on the mother. As science has changed in modern day, the new definition for FTT is now: “a descriptive term for a syndrome occurring in infancy and early childhood in which height and weight are below the third percentile for age”(Arnold 181). This diagnosis is one that sets the future for the babies life. It is very important to know how such little things are important when caring for the newly born babies. The less stress that is caused for the babies the bigger and brighter of a future will have in tole for them. Better treatment of the young is crucial and should be shown greater attention for the betterment of health in you children who have no choice in their life yet.
The next stage of stress is during the preschool stage, which are the ages between two and four. When talking about stress at this age the definition of stress turns into something different. Since these ages are times in which children are finally getting developed and setting a pace in their lives, the effects of stress of children these ages is specifically an environmental event. The development in this stage is very crucial because the stress that comes with every single different event, there will be a different challenge. The different events that happen test the limits of each children and see how stress will effect their reactions. It is important the know how the average child thinks at this age. “The cognitive functioning of 2 to 4 year old children is characterized by pre-conceptual thought. They do not make abstract generalizations, nor do they categorize information actively. Instead, their thinking is closely tied to he physical properties of objects or events, with few mechanisms for understanding causality. Pre-conceptual thinking is characterized by two main features: animism, or the attribution of human qualities to inanimate objects, and egocentrism, or the proclivity to view any event solely from the perspective of its meaning to the self”(QTD: Piaget). The ability to oversee events and understand their true meaning just isn’t there at this age. These limitations make them see events as frightening and cause themselves to be stressed out. As a result to this, preschoolers often form a very set, yet unpredictable, development issues and responses to stress. Some of these development issues include control issues, self awareness, and attachment. Children find more of what they want and they try to get all of what the can get from their parents. These behaviors lead to issues such as these. Factors such as these make parenting a very challenging thing at this stage. Responses to these stressful situations in childhood are generally characterized into four different categories. These include regression, attention seeking, withdrawal of social contact, and changes in play(Arnold 197). The most popular of these is regression. No getting what they wanted or dealing with new events they have never been challenged with before tarts to lead to a very immature type of behavior. The disorganization of behavior is likely just the fact that children at this age aren’t able to further think through any further situations. Whether or not they are seeking attention or trying to withdraw themselves from the situation depends on the situation. Depending on what stress they are experiencing the different attention they will seek. The different play however is very important. The higher that stress levels grow the more children neglect the need to play and interact. Often it is that the more stress the less complex of toys they would want to play with because of the inability to think. Playing offers a chance to get away from all the stress around them and it offers them a chance to re-enact a situation to better understand it.
The third and final stage of stress starts with school age development and works its way to the adolescent stage of life. This stage in the process begins when the children start to turn around six or seven years old. This was what was once called the age of reason and it was known for that strictly because now children have the ability to think for themselves. Skills concepts and ideas begin to click in a way that they’ve never done before for the children. Stress become more generalized throughout this stage and changes more off of things such as having siblings, finishing homework, or pressure from parents to strive to be as much as they can be. Due to these things the strive to come together and find a sense of confidence and personality is crucial when moving on further in life. Stress in this stage moves more from an inability to think to more of a fear of what can happen. “Fear is thought to involve at least three response systems: (a) overt, motoric expressions, for example, moves towards avoidance, like running away; (b) unpleasant subjective feelings and thoughts about what is happening; and (c) physiological activities, such as increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and other stress-related bodily responses”(Arnold 226). Fear is not to be confused with anxiety in these areas. Anxiety, despite having it’s similarities to fear, is not as specific and doesn’t apply to the same sense of tension as fear. Fear despite how prevalent it is among young children, not all fear is about bad things. For years a lot of fear has been about the fear of success. This fear of successes has a much different feeling then the fear of loss. For this fear it has much to do with the different sex of the person. Much of it is thinking that women fear of being able to accomplish all of what men have, and men fear to have all of the power and control women have over everyone’s lives. This huge topic to fit into a young child’s head becomes very stressful when planning out the future. Every situation that becomes noticeable and only by the outcome do these children aspire to reach new levels of success. Every outcome will be different and every judgement call will be different. Stress related to events creates consequences for every action as well. Often if there is more stress related to a certain path that they can see, children now come out feeling more confident or the feeling of failure and that they have to try harder. When this attitude is brought into the adolescent stage the different levels of stress follow. It now switches again to pier interaction, sexual orientation and a new sense of freedom. Stress from this point on in a child’s life seems more to be focused on what the future will be like. Sexual orientation is a huge part of this time. A young man will be going through puberty and all focus will now turn into what he wants to do with his sex life. much of this change will also be factored in when talking about family during this time. From the start there is always the small sense the inner child. The stress of years past has gone away and the transformation into a better, more independent person. A sense of identity and freedom pushes most of the stress away. As life begins to come further and further out of childhood, there is no sense of going back. From this point on the path only pushes further and further onward. The future depended on what you made of it as a child and your decisions and stress help manage that path. Family, friends and the path to the future are the only stressors that left to deal with. Family issues at any age will always be a problem. When into the adolescent stage, family issues become more of an importance because there is a part that can be played in the future of that family. Throughout childhood the most common blame for anything would be the child on himself because he couldn’t understand what was going on. If anything were to happen to family later on in life, the divide between the family would tare it to pieces. With the future in top priority there is no you want to distract you from it.
Stressors all the way from birth to adolescence change throughout life. The importance behind knowing what stress is, is the mental and physical problems that it can cause you in the future. Stress is a very serious thing and without proper care, many of the things that caused stress early in life may come back in a negative way. Take for instance when the child was just being born. If the stress from that birth might be enough to cause problems from the rest of life would be destroyed. Lights from and incubator are bright enough to cause damage to retinas in baby’s eyes and the sounds made from closing the doors is enough to limit the oxygen to the brain. If potential blindness and pressure on the brain was more known, perhaps more people can be saved. Researcher Ashley Winning of the Harvard School of Public Health performed an experiment on a group of school kids. She performed tests to test the amount of stress from the rimes those people were just teenagers to the point where they were adults. She retested that same group of people. Out of the original group 7000 were tested again to test the level of stress present within them. When Ashley Winning got her results back she found that the result for disease related to stress from childhood to adulthood was very high in the adult stage(All Things Considered). Behaviorally and Hormonally stress in early childhood will change many things. Excessive threat vigilance, poor relationships with other people and unhealthy lifestyle decisions are just few of the many things that can be effected. “1.5–2.0 fold greater incidence of cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and premature mortality among those exposed to early adversity…The rates of CHD by age 50 were 2.4 times higher in physicians who had been raised in households that were low versus high in socioeconomic status”(Parker). CHD is short for coronary heart disease and it comes with many deadly side effects. This disease was found in all of these people just because of the stress that they had in their lives, which helped set it off.
“Childhood stress establishes a pro-inflammatory phenotype in cells of the immune system called monocytes/macrophages. As a result, these cells are permanently endowed with pro-inflammatory tendencies”(Parker). These diseases were started off in childhood and created a way to disrupt health in the future. The important thing to realize is that these diseases were started without us even knowing. Even when still in adolescence stage the risk for many diseases was very high. A very important one is depression. The risk for depression for teens in adolescence have a very high risk of being depressed and it only goes up of their parents are showing signs of depression. The environment they are growing up in is forcing children and teens to make decisions that they shouldn’t have to make and it is forcing things upon them. The risk for suicide also goes up as the rate depression increase. Risk of substance abuse such as alcohol and drugs also goes up as the stress level increases. Any substance abuse especially when it is just teenagers should be prevented with full heart for the betterment of the youth among the nation. Children and teenagers are looking for way to get rid of their pain and their fears and this is what most of them turn to. Most of the time this is due broken families and the fact that they were raised wrong. “The stressors found to be significantly more frequent within the street youth population, prior to leaving home, were abuse (sexual, physical, emotional), death of a parent, placement in a shelter or children’s home, being caught selling drugs, having a parent’s significant other move into the house, and history of being thrown out of the house”(Ayerst).
Childhood depression is a very serious matter that has to be taken care of. The seriousness of this is beyond many things that are happening in the world. Childhood determines how the rest of life turns out to be. The age at which stress become apparent is far to low and is causing many health issues for all people. The earlier that stress is present then the higher chance of catching some sort of physical or mental disease will be. It is important to know where theses stressors come from, what physical and mental problems they cause the body and what actions can be done to prevent further chronic stress in life. Stress has all sorts of definitions, but it is all up to how it effects every person individually at the end of the day that matters. Chronic stress can be avoided, but normal stress cannot. It is important to know what the difference is, and if chronic stress isn’t present throughout all parts of life, then the chance for healthier lifestyle will be much higher