¶ … children go through. This is especially true for children that underwent something traumatic or continue to endure traumatic events. Billy, a 13-year-old Hispanic boy, deals with many stresses in life. From having dealt with physical abuse from his parents to enduring multiple foster care families, to living in a bad neighborhood where there are multiple gang related incidents a week, it makes sense Billy has rebelled and become a product of his environment. That is not to say however, he will continue to vandalize cars and shoplift, but it may help explain why he has done the things he has.
The first societal influence is abuse. When a child goes through physical abuse there a host of consequences. First and foremost, the child loses trust in people. When someone like a parent physically abuses their child, the child sees that the person meant to protect him instead hurts him, destroying any confidence, self-esteem, and trust the child had.
For a child to build back the ability to trust in others, it takes several solutions aimed at rebuilding a child's self-esteem, coping skills, and confidence in him or herself. The first is self-esteem. In order for a person to trust another he first must trust himself. By building a child's self-esteem that child then learns to set boundaries and communicate with other his or her desires in order to construct a sense of identity and independence (Pruessner & Baldwin, 2014). Children need identities to help them get through moments where peer-pressure from bad environments might cause them to make bad choices.
As was mentioned earlier, gang-related activities in Billy's current neighborhood could influence to make bad decisions as was seen with shoplifting. If his identity is built back up via his self-esteem, he may learn to not turn to these bad choices to feel better about himself. Another solution is teaching Billy coping skills.
Coping skills...
An example of this is writing. Writing can help Billy deal with all the anger he feels towards his parents and can hopefully help him academically as well since writing is a big part of learning. The last solution is confidence. When someone is confident, they have faith in their abilities and their future.
Many things have happened to Billy. While nothing can be done to prevent further bad things from happening altogether, if Billy has confidence in himself, he will have the resilience to endure the hard times and the talent to provide himself a way towards the good times. Roadblocks could come in the form of legal issues from the previous activities he did. He could end up in juvenile hall and possible gang-related violence. Anything could happen in that kind of neighborhood that could seriously impact Billy's future.
Another issue is the foster care system. Billy already went to five different foster care families. Children that go through the foster care system often feel depressed and isolated (Stoner, Leon, & Fuller, 2013). One solution may be to improve Billy's support system. Whichever family he is with now, they can help Billy by providing him a means of communication and interaction that he would otherwise have in a regular family. This may potentially not work since people often times do not get along, however, it is something worth trying.
Another solution is offering Billy inclusion in an after-school related activity. If he cannot find connection with his foster family, he may be able to find it with friends. After-school programs offer a positive environment for students to grow, learn and interact with each other. By offering a support network via fellow students, this may help Billy.
A third…
