Middle childhood, poverty, and adjustment: Does social support have an impact?

Abstract

The present study evaluated 64 children and their primary caregivers who were living in poverty. The children were administered a stress measure, a social support measure, and a measure of self‐esteem. Caregivers completed a stress measure, a measure of child adjustment, and a demographic questionnaire. Social support was not found to moderate the relationship between stress and child outcome. However, social support was found to be one possible mediator of the child's reported stress on their self‐esteem. According to the mediating model, enhancing children's social support may positively influence their self‐esteem. Greater levels of self‐esteem can affect many aspects of children's lives, such as improving school performance and efforts toward achieving goals. Because of the important role that social support can play on children's self‐esteem, social support should be actively promoted through school and community groups and organizations, especially with children from disadvantaged economic situations. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Modifiable Factors for the Trajectory of Health-Related Quality of Life among Youth Growing Up in Poverty: A Prospective Cohort Study

“…Social support has been identified in the literature as one of the most powerful factors that can promote healthy development among children [24]. Consistent with past studies [6,25,26], we found that improved social support perceived by children who had grown up in families living in poverty was associated with a better HRQoL.…”

“…Social support, which is the presence of enduring relationships that help individuals develop a sense of security and interpersonal commitment [27], might play a role in promoting resilience and diminishing the negative influences of stress on developmental and adjustment outcomes among individuals living in adverse and stressful conditions. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence supporting the positive moderating and mediating effects of strong social support on the reduction of the negative impacts of poverty and related stress on one's health and well-being [24]. This study extends previous knowledge by showing that improvements in perceived social support during adolescence could be associated with improvements in all aspects of HRQoL, including those related to physical, emotional, social, and school functioning, among children growing up in poverty.…”

An Examination of Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement in Science Course and Achievement Scores in Performance Assignments with Regard to Different Variables: A Boarding School Example

“…al., 2004;Kazu & Aşkın, 2011;Küçük & Arıkan, 2005), their level of readiness is low and this results in academic failure (İnal, 2009). It was found in the other studies conducted that there was a very close parallelism between the students' academic achievement and families' level of interest in a child (Guest & Biasini, 2001;Halıcı, 2005;Pettit, Bates & Dodge, 1997;Wentzell, 1997) and it was found that the performance of students studying in boarding schools were low when compared to other students (Arı, 2002;Udum, 2012).…”

A school‐based violence prevention model for at‐risk eighth grade youth

“…academic achievement, and peer selection. Finally, Guest & Biasini (2001) noted that the presence of meaningful peer and adult relationships-for children experiencing challenging situations and environments-worked as protective factors by attenuating the effects of stress on adjustment and developmental outcomes. Derzon & Wilson (1999) found that risk and protective factors were important in understanding the prevention of school violence because they stood as outcomes associated with antisocial behaviors.…”