Living in poverty is a challenge faced by so many today, and that challenge becomes far more difficult upon being granted the responsibilities of parenthood. Raising and caring for a child inherently requires ensuring that they are able to transition into independent, functional, and successful adults. A major part of this comes through providing a child with a quality education, which becomes immensely difficult without the financial resources to pay for things like privatized schooling, extracurricular activities, and other luxuries afforded to students that come from a wealthy family.

From the moment of birth until a child reaches the point of adulthood, the financial responsibility for their well-being and growth lies entirely upon their parents. As such, for a child’s parents to live in poverty means for their child to also be living in poverty. This translates into several effects on a child’s education, in terms of limiting available choices and access to academic resources, and through negative impacts on various aspects of their health.

Imagine being a young child capable of choosing to attend any school you desire, anywhere in the world. Now imagine being that same young child, forced to attend the most run-down and dangerous school in the most impoverished area that you can think of. This is the nature of the contrast in the influence of a child’s economic status on educational choice. A child with wealthy parents—especially when such wealth is particularly significant—experiences little to no boundaries in what is possible for their educational experiences. That prevalence of choice among wealthier parents and their children is not limited to choice of institution, either. Children of wealthy parents are also offered the choice to take part in early education, extracurricular activities and other external academic experiences (Fox).

Wealthier parents can most often afford to enroll their children in sports and clubs, send their children on field trips, and pay for tutors when their children’s academic performance is not up to par. Children of impoverished parents are rarely afforded such opportunities, which can result in a serious degradation of their learning experiences and place far greater responsibility for academic improvement on the child rather than on the child’s parents (Fox). This is particularly true when a child’s parents cannot afford to pay for a child’s tutor or supplementary learning materials.

Practically every available academic institution, from early education through secondary and post-secondary, relies upon more than just in-class teaching and provided teaching materials to educate students. Students are often expected or even required to have access to books, computers with Internet access, and other sources of academic materials that may be out of reach for children from impoverished families (Parrett and Budge). As such, wealthier students are given an inherent advantage in terms of performance, leaving impoverished students behind and in a constant pattern of underperformance that greatly impacts their future prospects. Considering that access to a lucrative post-secondary education is reliant on excellent performance resulting in access via scholarships and grants or alternatively on the financial means to fund such a further education, a child of impoverished parents is denied both potential entrances. This fundamentally works to ensure that the cycle of poverty continues, except in rare circumstances wherein an impoverished student is able to excel despite the obstacles faced in the lack of available academic resources.

A largely forgotten aspect of living in an impoverished family is the reality of facing poor physical and mental health, and the consequences of each. Exposure to environmental hazards, meals with poor nutritional value, and a toxic home life (especially with a presence of abuse in some form) are all factors that can take a significant toll on the overall health of a child (Boland). The health impacts of these factors that coincide with a life of poverty provide another unfortunate disadvantage in ensuring that they fall behind their peers in their personal and academic development (Boland). A child in poor physical and mental health may begin to display behavioral problems in school that serve to both disrupt the learning experiences of others and prevent the child from being able to absorb the information being taught (Boland). Furthermore, a child of impoverished parents may also experience physical illness and disease forcing them to miss classes, as well as impairment to cognitive development that may come to affect them throughout the course of their life (Parrett and Budge). Considering the importance of a child’s health and the many potential consequences of its degradation as a result of living in poverty, it is fair to argue that the health impacts are the most significant effect of all on a child’s education.

A child with impoverished parents evidently suffers many consequences in their pursuit of an education. While it is certainly unfair to blame the parents themselves for their economic status, it is similarly unfair to place that burden of poverty onto a child and their opportunity to obtain an education and succeed in life. The effects of poverty on a child’s development and education make it abundantly clear that more must be done to address poverty as a broader issue, and more specifically to alleviate this burden that it places on young children. It is up to educators and governments to further involve themselves in eliminating the boundaries in place that keep children from impoverished families from getting the most out of their education.
Works Cited
Boland, Caitlin. “Warren County Schools Raise Awareness of Poverty’s Effects on Children’s
Development.”  The McDuffie Progress, 24 Jan. 2018, www.mcduffieprogress.com/news/warren-county-schools-raise-awareness-of-poverty-s-effects-on/article_eb53471a-013d-11e8-a6a9-83dbeb284a35.html.
Fox, Zach. “Early Childhood Education Critical for Students in Poverty.”  GoUpstate, Gatehouse
Media Publications, 24 Feb. 2018, www.goupstate.com/news/20180224/early-childhood-education-critical-for-students-in-poverty.
Parrett, William, and Kathleen Budge. “How Does Poverty Influence Learning?”  Edutopia,
George Lucas Educational Foundation, 13 Jan. 2016, www.edutopia.org/blog/how-does-poverty-influence-learning-william-parrett-kathleen-budge.