The environment of a person is an important factor in shaping the character of that person. When an infant is born its social and cognitive characters as it grows up is mostly influenced by the environment in which it was brought up. There are many factors that influence the child’s behavior.
For instance if a child was born in a violent environment, where all he/she was used to are screams and bangs, then defiantly he/she would grow up believing the world is a violent place and one has to be tough in order to survive in order to survive in our world.
On the other hand if a child was born in a peaceful environment where people are friendly, the infant will develop good social character being friendly with everyone (Chasnoff IJ, Anson A, Hatcher R, et al, 1998).
Body
In our case we will be discussing the influence of drug abuse and poverty in building the social and cognitive character of infants. Cognitive character describes the performance when it comes to academic activities. According scientist the character of a child is molded at the age of between six to seven years.
On the prenatal drugs exposure, different sexes are affected differently. According to some researchers, drug abuse during pregnancy has no influence on the development of the infants IQ, but the child’s general behavior.
Despite prenatal drug exposure poverty is also a key factor in influencing the character of an infant. Growing up in an underprivileged environment means that the child is brought up in a hardship environment.
This makes them grow up to be defiant. Poverty also influences the child’s language, as they tend to be impolite with aggressive behavior. They become hard to control or tame, thus making their management almost impossible when they are old enough.
The effects of drugs abuse during pregnancy on the unborn is also greatly influence by gender of the child. Researchers have found out that if children’s IQ of children is influenced due to drugs use by the mother, boys are highly affected as compared to the female species (Prasanna N., et al., 2008). On the other point of poverty, generally areas with high population of underprivileged people are to be very violent.
In most case the male species are known to be the violent. Children learn most of the things through imitation and through this the male children grow imitating their elders. Making them always violent believing all misunderstanding should be sorted physically.
According to the study a test was carried out between children born under prenatal drug exposure and non prenatal drug exposed children. It was found that, there was a big difference on the academic development of the children as their intoxication does not influence their brain development in terms of academics.
Generally use of drugs such as alcohol and tobacco has little influence on the academic performance of the infants if the mother was a user during her pregnancy.
Despite the intoxication by the drugs the child’s brain development is not interfered with. But on the other hand the parent’s financial status can be of influence to the academic development of the children. Children born in urban and well developed families are more exposed to the corporate world as compared to children to from poor families.
Conclusion
In conclusion parents are of great influence to the development of their children character. Drugs use and poverty are all parents fault, and has nothing to do with the child but they are a major influence to the shaping of the child’s character. Considering both prenatal drugs exposure and poverty, poverty has greater influence on the academic development of the infants.
References
Chasnoff IJ, Anson A, Hatcher R, et al (1998). Prenatal exposure to cocaine and other drugs: Outcome at four to six years. New York: Acad Sci.
Prasanna N., et al. (2008). Children’s Cognitive-Behavioral Functioning at Age 6 and 7: Prenatal Drug Exposure and Caregiving Environment. Prasanna Nair: Ambul Pediat.