Take children out of poverty, and they become less likely to exhibit behaviour problems, according to new study findings.
Take children out of poverty, and they become less likely to exhibit behaviour problems, according to new study findings.
Moving families out of poverty was followed by a reduction in children's behavioural symptoms, according to the researchers at the Duke University Medical School in Durham, North Carolina, USA. They obtained their findings by following a "natural experiment," in which a certain percentage of the families of 1,420 children living in western North Carolina changed their income levels midway through the study. When the study began, the researchers tested psychiatric symptoms in the children, 68 percent of whom were living in poverty - then repeated the tests every year for 8 years.
Among a group of children between the ages of 9 and 13, those who lived in poverty tended to show more behaviours linked to psychiatric problems than those who did not live in poverty. However, when the families of some of the children moved out of poverty, the rate of certain behaviours, such as acting out and temper tantrums - among these "ex-poor" children began to match the rate of those behaviours seen in children who had never been poor.
These findings, suggest that poverty places stresses on people that can affect their mental health. Moving out of poverty had an effect on symptoms of conduct and oppositional defiant disorders, in which children act out or exhibit out of control behaviour such as temper tantrums, respectively. Acting out includes behaviours that violate social norms, like lying, bullying, stealing or vandalism.
Although children's symptoms related to conduct and oppositional defiant disorders decreased when family income increased, they noted that symptoms related to anxiety and depression did not. To explain this discrepancy, they suggested that feelings of anxiety and depression among children living in poverty may be less influenced by changes in income, or may take longer to respond to those changes. When they examined why moving out of poverty appeared to help children's mental health, they found that once parents had more money, they had more time to supervise their children. This suggests that certain aspects of a child's mental health can be influenced by the impact of parents' financial problems on their free time and energy.
Parents, especially poor parents, should give more help and support in the hard task of raising children to take off some of the strain and give them more time to do the good job that they want to do. Societies need to recognise that economic levels do have important implications for both family functioning and child mental health.
Moving families out of poverty was followed by a reduction in children's behavioural symptoms, according to the researchers at the Duke University Medical School in Durham, North Carolina, USA. They obtained their findings by following a "natural experiment," in which a certain percentage of the families of 1,420 children living in western North Carolina changed their income levels midway through the study. When the study began, the researchers tested psychiatric symptoms in the children, 68 percent of whom were living in poverty - then repeated the tests every year for 8 years.
Among a group of children between the ages of 9 and 13, those who lived in poverty tended to show more behaviours linked to psychiatric problems than those who did not live in poverty. However, when the families of some of the children moved out of poverty, the rate of certain behaviours, such as acting out and temper tantrums - among these "ex-poor" children began to match the rate of those behaviours seen in children who had never been poor.
These findings, suggest that poverty places stresses on people that can affect their mental health. Moving out of poverty had an effect on symptoms of conduct and oppositional defiant disorders, in which children act out or exhibit out of control behaviour such as temper tantrums, respectively. Acting out includes behaviours that violate social norms, like lying, bullying, stealing or vandalism.
Although children's symptoms related to conduct and oppositional defiant disorders decreased when family income increased, they noted that symptoms related to anxiety and depression did not. To explain this discrepancy, they suggested that feelings of anxiety and depression among children living in poverty may be less influenced by changes in income, or may take longer to respond to those changes. When they examined why moving out of poverty appeared to help children's mental health, they found that once parents had more money, they had more time to supervise their children. This suggests that certain aspects of a child's mental health can be influenced by the impact of parents' financial problems on their free time and energy.
Parents, especially poor parents, should give more help and support in the hard task of raising children to take off some of the strain and give them more time to do the good job that they want to do. Societies need to recognise that economic levels do have important implications for both family functioning and child mental health.
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