Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

  I am fortunate to have no friends, or family to have experience any consequences from stress in their development. Children are resilient, many experience stress, or even toxic stress and with help are able to reverse the effects.
  I selected Syria not because of any affinity, but because that country has been in the news for awhile. McKirdy(CNN, 2017) says that 3 million children under 6 know nothing but war. " Syrian children are overwhelmingly suffering "toxic stress" from the country's brutal war".  The possibility of long-term effects on their psychological and physical health is almost inevitable.  These children are losing limbs, seeing friends and family members killed. The most violent way to kill, beheading, and these children have witness this inhumane travesty.

   Toxic stress leads to a number of problems, bed-wetting, self-harm, suicide attempts, aggressive and withdrawn behavior. One child in the article wakes up screaming and runs out into the street. These children are bombarded with verbal and physical abuse, exposure to violence, fear of abduction and deprivation. Bombarded with bombs, looking for shelter, and clean water are all toxic stress on children. There is child marriage, recruitment into armed conflict for boys, and sexual exploitation for girls. The wars are terrible, but the innocent  children  who suffer, poverty, malnutrition, and a host of other maltreatment is heartbreaking.
 
There are researchers trained in mental health trying to help some of these children, but in some places held by ISIS, or the government access to the children is not possible.  There are more children than help for them, and that is a travesty.

                                           Reference
McKirdy, E. (2017 March 7). War's 'toxic stress' on Syrian children detailed in       report. CNN.Com  Retrieved from
 www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/middleeast/save-the-children-syrian-children-mental=health/index.html