How External Factors Affect Child Development

One external factor that could affect a child's development is poverty and deprivation. This splits into 5 categories; diet, housing, education, play & leisure opportunities and aspirations & expectations. If a child is born into a family of low-income, the 5 categories above tend to be negatively affected due to a lack of money and opportunities. A poor diet, for example, can mean that children are fed an unhealthy diet of processed food, meaning they are not as healthy and they are unlikely to grow as well as they could. The house in which they live may not be heated due to expensive bills, meaning the child's health could be at risk due to damp. The child probably wouldn't be able to attend the best school meaning they wouldn't be able to
These children often grow up feeling of little worth and they lack motivation, feeling like they are unable to better the situation.
Another external factor is personal choice. As a child becomes a young adult, their personal choices can affect their development because they begin to make their own decisions. This consists of whether or not to smoke, drink, have sex or take drugs etc. For example, drug use can affect the growth of your brain in teenage years and eating unhealthy can have negative impacts on your body
(physical developments) later in life. Even something that seems insignificant to a young person, such as skipping breakfast, can affect their concentration, directly affecting their development.
A third external factor could be a child's education. Education is huge in terms of a child's development as they spend so many years of their life in educational settings. If education is good, a child's cognitive development should be stimulated, in which they learn to read, write, problem solve and more. Without realising, they also learn to socialise with peers, develop moral codes and learn to organise themselves. In good schools children may also be able to access other