Broken Windows Theory Explanation of Background Affect on Children Development

There are many socioeconomic factors that could affect the health of a child, such as their education, their family’s income or their social interactions with other people. If children lack many of these socio-economic factors it would strongly affect their development. Children are starting to become ever more independent from their parents. They may for instance rebel against their parents. Approval by peers is becoming very relevant. This child may try to become part of the group with new behaviours. Children who are in society’s where most crime goes unreported and many crimes and deviant behaviours is very common. So, when children are in their teens starting to separate from their parents and become more independent they will be surrounded by groups of people and influences that encourage them to do deviant or illegal things. For example, teens could be easily encouraged to drink underage and they wouldn’t see the problem with it as it goes unreported and they wouldn’t fully understand that it has bad consequences. 

Living in a low-income society people will start to care less and less about crime as they won’t see it as important or they will feel like if they report it nothing will happen. A theory that supports this is the broken windows theory which suggests that if petty crimes aren’t tackled straight away this will lead to more serious crime. In a low social part of society windows remaining broken on building shows that nobody cares about the neighbourhood and things like this go unreported. This could strongly affect a child development as if they are growing up around all this unreported crime then they will start to think that its acceptable which means it could affect them growing up and staying out of trouble with the law. 

If a child comes from a low socioeconomic background it can seriously affect their development and how they behave later in life. Young kids growing up in community where their developmental needs are not met are at an increased risk of delays in one or more fields, such as learning and language. Failure to invest time and resources in early childhood can have long-term effects on their long-term educational health. There are many social reasons why people would not report crime such as lack of knowledge that what has happened was actually a crime, the complexity of the crime, lack of media interest in that type of crime can make people feel like it’s not as important, lack of public concern can put people off reporting it and also some crime is culture bound so if it is accepted in their culture they won’t see it as a crime.

Where as, a child that grows up in a high-class society has more benefits to their life. They will truly understand the consequences of crime as in their neighbourhoods it will not go unreported. When they are apart from their parents they will be in a more protected part of society so they won’t be as vulnerable which means they are less likely to be persuaded to participate in crimes or be deviant. They will also have more money to have the freedom to do what like so you are least likely to find them hanging round in common areas. A lot of children from low socioeconomic backgrounds commit crimes out of boredom as in their area there isn’t much you can do and they don’t have a lot of money to do what they want to do. Children that are from high class societies are more likely to grow up more mature and they will more understand the consequences of committing a crime.

Lower levels of socioeconomic backgrounds are highly associated with the following in children: higher levels of emotional and behavioural problems including social issues, signs of delinquent behaviour and diagnosis of attention hyperactivity, higher rates of depression, anxiety, attempted suicide, tobacco abuse, illicit drug use and teenage episodic heavy drinking and higher levels of aggression. This shows how it can negatively affect their development. Also, the broken windows theory suggests that if nobody explains to the child that doing even small thefts is bad and leads to consequences, then in the future small thefts can turn into full-fledged robberies or even murders. 

References

• Mcleod, S. (2020). Erik Erikson | Psychosocial Stages | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html [Accessed 14 Jan. 2020].
• Study.com(2020) [online] available athttps://study.com/academy/lesson/ what-is-child-development-definiton-theories-stages.html [accessed 14 Jan. 2020].
• ScienceDaily. (2020). Social class makes a difference in how children tackle classroom problems. [online] Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140827163445.htm [Accessed 13 Feb. 2020].
• tutor2u. (2020). Broken Windows Theory | Sociology | tutor2u. [online] Available at: https://www.tutor2u.net/sociology/reference/broken-windows-theory-explained [Accessed 13 Feb. 2020].