|
Nonparental Stressors: School and Friends
Other key relationships that can positively and negatively influence a child and
his development include siblings, friends, coaches, and teachers. A child’s
experiences during the long hours he spends at school, and with his peers, also
affect his stress pathways. Indeed, being excluded or bullied by peers can lead to
lifelong health consequences.
John, now forty years old, suffers from major gut problems and chronic
fatigue. He understands the relationship between his struggles with his
narcissistic dad and his adult health problems. But, he points out, there is “no
box to check” on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey for “the bullying I
faced when I was young.”
In seventh grade, John says, “It was the worst. We moved to California from
across the country. And this kid at my new school started picking on me, telling
me I had a ‘really big head.’ As in a physically
big
head. Then he got two other
kids in on it and the three of them would sit in a ring of seats around me in every
class. They’d tease me and pick on me whenever they could get away with it.”
By eighth grade it got worse. The boys took his stuff. One day, in science class,
John says, “This same boy stole my backpack right before it was time to turn in
our homework. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was just so tired of getting
bullied. I started to get my backpack back from this kid and we got in this tug-
of-war, struggling, each holding a strap, when one strap broke and he fell down.
He told the teacher and his parents that I pushed him and my dad got really upset
with me. My mom had my back, and she believed me. But my dad did not take
up my side.”
Bullying is a form of adversity linked to illnesses and disease in adulthood.
Investigators at Duke recently followed 1,420 boys and girls between the ages of
nine and twenty-one who had been victims of bullying—as well as the kids who
bullied them. They regularly tested these kids’ blood levels of C-reactive
protein, or CRP, a marker of systemic inflammation that physicians look at to
help diagnose cardiovascular and other diseases. The victims of bullying had
higher CRP levels, which rose in direct relationship to the number of bullying
events they’d endured.
“The only other kind of social adversity where we see this kind of long-term
effect is in children who are physically abused or neglected,” says William E.
Copeland, associate professor of psychiatry at Duke and one of the authors of the
study. “This kind of social defeat is more potent and long-lasting than we
previously thought.”
Other studies show that children who experience bullying are much more
likely to later suffer from depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.
When kids struggle with the overall pain of social exclusion in their peer
relationships, that social pain hurts physically. Brain scans show this to be true.
Social pain, the kind that occurs if, say, a child is repeatedly excluded during
every game, activates the same brain circuits that are associated with the sensory
processing of physical pain.
In one study, which followed eight hundred kids from the age of sixteen to
forty-three, adolescents whose teachers had reported that they had problematic
peer relationships later had a far higher likelihood of developing cardiovascular
disease, high blood pressure, and obesity in middle age. This occurred whether
or not they had also had adversity in the home.
This is particularly troubling considering recent stats that show bullying is
prevalent. A recent SAFE survey found that about one in four schoolchildren in
the United States is bullied regularly during school hours. Kids in grades six
through ten are the most likely to be victims of bullies and to join in bullying.
Almost half of all kids reported fearing harassment or bullying in the bathroom
at school, and many kids who said they’d faced bullying made excuses or tried
to find ways to avoid going to school.
Bullying now extends past the schoolyard and into the home. Bullies can find
a kid with a smartphone wherever he or she goes, anytime. Disturbingly, about
80 percent of all high school students have been bullied online, and about 15
percent say they’ve been threatened online.
Trouble at home and trouble at school are often related. Christina Bethell,
PhD, professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins,
found that 48 percent of children from birth to age seventeen have experienced
one of nine types of Adverse Childhood Experiences, and 23 percent
experienced two or more. Children exposed to at least two ACEs were more than
two and a half times more likely to repeat a grade, or to be disengaged with their
classwork, compared to those who had no such experiences. After accounting for
differences in a child’s age, race, and income, those with two or more ACEs
were nearly five times more likely to have some type of emotional, behavioral,
or developmental problem such as ADHD, anxiety, or depression. Specifically,
they were over three times more likely to have ADHD. And more than three-
quarters of children who had emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems
such as ADHD, anxiety, or depression had experienced ACEs.
Other studies have shown that children with a single ACE Score are ten times
more likely to have learning and behavior problems compared with those not
exposed to trauma, chronic unpredictable stress, or neglect. And those with
Adverse Childhood Experiences are thirty times more likely to have behavior or
learning problems than those not exposed to childhood adversity. Teachers may
suggest that these children be treated for ADHD, not knowing that they need
treatment for trauma or PTSD, which involves psychotherapy. The symptoms
are the same, but the treatments are entirely different.
The chronic worry and anxiety kids feel about doing well and performing at
school and the race to get into college itself can also be a major life stressor.
Vicki Abeles, documentarist of
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
