Blog Assignment: Week 4

While going over this week’s assignment, I was overcome by how many of the stressors we see throughout our lives and how they affect us. I will say that for me I feel my childhood was very stressful because I was a military child and moved often and then when I was two years old my dad was killed in a car accident. After this happened my mom did the best she could to raise five children alone and we ended up still moving around and living close to military bases so we had their support system. Being part of the military family has a lot of benefits because they do take care of their own-no matter what. One week before my eleventh birthday my mom passed away from cancer and we started moving around to family and strangers homes. My brother tried to care for us but he had his own family by now and it was just too hard to take in four more people to care for. I lived with aunts that just wanted the money that came with us and then the foster care system that I my view did a very poor job of screening families before putting children in their care. One family I lived with abused us often and we finally found our voices and told someone and they came and got us out, but not before they had damaged our small two year old brother (foster brother) by hitting him because he wouldn’t talk-he had something in his throat that had to be operated on later and I found out he fully recovered with no side effects. I lived in over ten places between the years 1971-1979. Over this time my siblings and I lost all our belongings so that we now have nothing to show or share with our own children and grandchildren.

For me I feel that many of the stressors listed this week and many others fall into my life as I am sure they affect many of my classmates. We all have difficult times to remember and persevering throughout is what makes us stronger and the person we grow to become as an adult. I am very sensitive to how the foster care system works and have talked with social workers many times about what I need to do to make a difference and I am in the process of working with our local office as a volunteer so I can made an even bigger impact on children’s lives and help them in new ways.

Childhood Stress

I chose childhood stress in Japan because of the Tsunami and the fact that I lived there for three years (in Misawa). I would like to research the Tsunami and find out in what ways others and I can help those affected. I was reading on the internet today that a man’s motorcycle was washed up in Canada in April. It was a very touching story about the Tsunami even though it does not deal with childhood stress. So many families were and still are affected; they will be continued to be affected for the rest of their lives. Children need to be talked to and shown books that can help them understand what happened and this also helps them to cope with the help of the adults in their lives.

References: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/04/disasters-put-stress-children-japan.html