Factors That Contribute To Poor Early Childhood Development
Due to the increased childhood mortality rates over the last decades, there has been an increase in the focus on child development. Approximately 200 million children worldwide fail to meet their development potential due to the following factors.
Poor Nutrition
Inadequacy of important minerals like iodine in the diet of a child affects the development process. Lack of sufficient iodine in the diet leads to poor cognitive development, stunted growth, and preventable mental impairment in children.
Iron is necessary for mental and physical development. Anemia is caused by inadequate iron; it results in impaired motor development in young children. Inadequate breastfeeding denies the child essential irons for development.
Unfavorable Environment
Some environments are prone to diseases that are lethal to the development of a child. Cerebral malaria causes severe brain damage, which may lead to neurological impairment. Malaria leads to loss of appetite, decreased activity, and poor development of the child.
Also, studies report cases of higher cognitive function in a child living in a motivating environment. Inadequate stimulation and few learning opportunities like libraries, community study halls and security produce children with shortcomings in cognitive development.
Poor Maternal-Child Interactions
Maternal mental health contributes to early childhood growth and development. Mothers who are regularly depressed interact with their children in a way that often leads to poor cognitive development and social development. Depression during pregnancy also affects the child.
Children born of young mothers are likely to suffer from under-nutrition, low birth weight and poor cognitive development. Mothers who are not well educated are more likely to take their role in the development of the child for granted. This endangers the child’s developmental process.
Poor Parenting Skills
A parent needs to know how to handle their child. Being overprotective makes the child over-dependent on their parents. Most parents are not equipping their children with the skills they need to survive independently. Parents are busy hunting for money and overlooking the role of parenthood. Failure to invest time in a child’s initial developmental stages is likely to affect the child negatively.
Lack of Enough Physical Exercise
The current generation of children prefers playing video games behind closed doors. A blend of indoor and outdoor gaming helps in a child’s development. A child does not need to perform rigorous workouts. Just let the child have enough time to play outdoors with friends. Inadequate exercises weaken the immune system of a child. Resulting illnesses further affect the development of a child.
Inadequate Sleep
Sleep is essential for sustaining the good health of a child. Children should sleep for not less than the recommended hours for healthy growth. Lack of enough sleep endangers the cognitive and physical development of a child. Slowed development of the brain slows down how the child learns and how the child grows. Sleep also relieves the child of unnecessary stress.
Poor Reinforcement of Activities
Teaching a child goes a long way than just pointing to one direction and walking away. Some teachers and parents do not make an effort to make a follow up on the learning progress of a child. Studies show that failure to reinforce recently learned content hastens the forgetting process.
Factors that contribute to poor early childhood development are more extrinsic and beyond the child’s control. The government, parents and other stakeholders should take more action in helping achieve healthy growth and development in children. Missing getting things right at this initial stage is a recipe for failure in the future. Failure that could be irreversible. It is therefore in the interest of guardians of kids to understand some of these factors.
