Poverty’s perils, and possibilities for change… via Jim Dwyer
Poverty and its concurrent chaos creates a reinforcing feedback loop through it’s effects on a number of developmental levels. And yet: it can be changed. We must — as Renée Wilson-Simmons, director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health puts the maxim — “Work the clay while it’s soft.”
Furthermore, we must understand the capacity to change, as evinced through the work in epigenetics.
This is a complex challenge; and, at the same time, an opportunity to appreciate our shared humanity and uplift those who deserve a helping hand.
Plus, we can learn about ourselves in the process.
The more [stress] factors children had, the more likely disease and mental health problems would emerge when they were adults. It’s considered a landmark piece of research, and its findings have stood up.
Research in the field of epigenetics, the study of how genes and the environment interact, has explained some of the responses that cause trouble…Early-life stress turns on genes that overreact to stress… At the same time ‘those genes that help us, to buffer us, from the effects of stress are epigenetically silenced.’
Evidence shows the brain’s ability to adapt means that children and even older people are not doomed by biology and environment.
