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Abstract
This research paper sought to explain the impact of public assistance on young children’s growth in the cognitive, social and emotional spheres. The analysis included a description of the welfare policy to concentrate on low-income families eligible for public assistance, which was intended to stimulate employment. Moreover, complexities relating to the program established restrictions to its effective implementation. The policy revealed in the Next Generation project focused on parents’ economic circumstances and their positive impact on children’s development if public assistance was regularly provided. All the data explored in this study extended the extant research literature on the influence of the welfare policy on children’s development as it relates to the cognitive, social and emotional growth in the optimal environment. Additionally, parents’ and caregivers’ realities were linked to children’s prospects of development characterized by employing cognitive mediators, improving cognitive control abilities in the emotional sphere and providing regular social interaction. The results of this study revealed an effective initiative towards low-income families on the assumption that public assistance promoted enhanced employment. The stress on physical and emotional implications of the policy was also emphasized.
Keywords: welfare policy, low-income families, public assistance, employment, cognitive growth, emotional well-being, social development
Description of Welfare Policy
Since the 1990s the U.S. welfare system has undergone notable changes with regard to stricter requirements of work and cash assistance. In addition, the government has concentrated on low-income parents with a view of providing financial work supports. It is important to understand that such public assistance is intended to stimulate employment, especially among single parents. According to the issue brief prepared by the Urban Institute (2012), access to the initiative correlates with development of creative solutions promoted by program administrators and community leaders (p. 14).
In respect of the outcomes of such an initiative across the states, collaboration of MDRC and the Department of Health and Human Services is revealed in the Next Generation project which dates back to 1999 and is still continuing. This collaboration enables researchers to analyze parents’ economic circumstances and their impact on children’s development. For instance, parents’ willingness to enroll their children in a public kindergarten is associated with “the developmental readiness of their child and the family’s resources to care for the child if not enrolled” (Fitzpatrick, 2012, p. 590). Such outcomes are characterized by an increase in employment and consequently with family well-being.
The welfare policy on public assistance targets parents and their children in the United States. It describes adults’ necessity to join the paid workforce so that they will not require governmental support any longer. In the family with children, implementation of the policy becomes more complicated, but it still aims to encourage low-income parents’ self-sufficiency by supporting their employment. Different stakeholders are involved in the initiative, including welfare and service workers, so children feel the effects of public assistance as well. The parents’ increased income, earning supplements provided by the government and use of child care facilities can impact the children’s development to a positive degree. As Milteer and Ginsburg (2012) assert, “all children deserve the opportunity to reach their highest potential” (p. 205).
On the other hand, there are complexities relating to the program which indicate restrictions to its effective implementation. It is primarily designed to satisfy needs of a nuclear family. Therefore, the issue brief prepared by the Urban Institute (2012) indicates difficulty in applying eligibility rules to cases presenting multi- and extended-family units. The case explains legal immigrants’ lack of opportunity to be eligible for public assistance benefits although refugees are “generally eligible for all types of benefits but may face more acute barriers to access due to language, literacy, and cultural differences” (pp. 10, 12).
Another complexity deals with changes in the rate of public assistance. As Fitzpatrick (2012) claims, this rate has decreased, especially in case of single mothers (p. 607). Such a situation forces mothers to join the labor market before their children turn five, which limits the childcare subsidy. Additionally, U.S. born children are eligible for the program, while foreign born ones are not. This situation emphasizes parents’ restricted use of public assistance or refusal to “enroll any of their children in public assistance programs” (“Urban Institute”, p. 13).
Impact of the Policy on Children’s Development
Parental well-being correlates with their children’s well-being. As changes in the welfare system support parents’ employment by endeavors to increase family income, these changes are likely to have effects on their children’s development. The optimal developmental environment for young children includes opportunities for their cognitive, social and emotional growth offered in school, home and community settings (Milteer & Ginsburg, 2012, p. 205).
Cognitive, social and emotional development is associated with caregivers’ realities. “Infants and preschoolaged children rely more heavily on their caregivers compared with their schoolaged and adolescent years when they become increasingly more independent” (Suglia, Duarte, Chambers, & Boynton-Jarrett, 2012, p. 1174). Positive associations of parental employment and increased income are found with young children’s cognitive, social and emotional growth. Poverty cannot characterize a positive trend in children’s development; neither can single parenthood, maternal depression and maternal drug abuse.
Vyncke et al. (2013) claim that “cognitive development is closely related to children’s well-being” (p. 26). Cognitive mediators play an essential role in young children’s development, especially when parents strive for enhanced economic circumstances to sustain their family income and obtain regular public assistance. Parental characteristics improve child well-being, and living in non-deprived neighborhoods corresponds to a higher rate of qualitative parental practices and a lower degree of parental stress resulting in harmful parental behavior. Adversely, the negative correlation is found with the lack of cognitive stimulation (Suglia et al., 2012, p. 1174) when low-income parents are deprived of public assistance benefits and are not inclined to contribute to their children’s cognitive growth.
Children’s emotional development is based on enhancing their social cognitive abilities and cognitive control abilities (McRae et al., 2012, p. 12). Emotional well-being characterizes individual differences with regard to children’s reaction to a variety of situations. Also, cognitive abilities maintain emotional well-being. Another aspect explains “how well we can harness our regulatory skills for the purpose of modifying our emotional responses” (McRae et al., 2012, p. 19). Furthermore, in the first three years of life, the caregiver-child relationship explains appearance of the ability to regulate responses to stress. “Stressful environments can hamper the development of self-regulation” (Suglia et al., 2012, p. 1177) and lack of emotional support prevents young children from developing in a cognitive and social way as well.
Parental involvement in social interaction with their children in playing, reading and reading-related activities (Milteer & Ginsburg, 2012, p. 209) proves to be effective for children’s development. Also, social growth relies on young children’s involvement in free unstructured play and creative outlets. Children’s regular play enables them to develop communication and leadership skills and focus on problem-solving and even negotiation techniques. Besides, “school engagement is best realized when the educational setting attends to the social and emotional development of children as well as their cognitive development” (Milteer & Ginsburg, 2012, p. 205). However, low-income parents may spend less time supplying their children with the relevant social contact. Insufficient creative playtime may hamper their timely development.
Conclusion
The welfare policy revealed in the Next Generation project describes an effective initiative towards low-income families. Hardships characterized by a decreased level of income explain why short-term reliance on public assistance is necessary. Similar periods of hardships are associated with succession of the low-wage labor market and with satisfying children’s needs. The welfare policy has a direct impact on children in terms of their cognitive, social and emotional development, and the growth emphasizes “a potential resource for individuals, communities and society as a whole” (Vyncke et al., 2013, p. 3). It is true if low-income parents then obtain opportunities for enhanced employment via public assistance. It is also vital to stress children’s physical and emotional health implications in the revised version of the policy, since “the physically and emotionally healthy children of today will become the productive citizens who will contribute positively to society in the future” (Milteer & Ginsburg, 2012, p. 210).
References
Fitzpatrick, M. D. (2012). Revising our thinking about the relationship between maternal labor supply and preschool. The Journal of Human Resources, 47(3), 583-612. doi:10.3368/jhr.47.3.583
McRae, K., Gross, J. J., Weber, J., Robertson, E. R., Sokol-Hessner, P., Ray, R. D., Ochsner, K. N. (2012). The development of emotion regulation: an fMRI study of cognitive reappraisal in children, adolescents and young adults. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(1), 11-22. doi:10.1093/scan/nsr093
Milteer, R. M., & Ginsburg, K. R. (2012). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bond: Focus on children in poverty. Pediatrics, 129(1), 204-213. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2953
Suglia, S. F., Duarte, C. S., Chambers, E. C., & Boynton-Jarrett, R. (2012). Cumulative social risk and obesity in early childhood. Pediatrics, 129(5), 1173-1179. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2456
The Urban Institute (2012, May). Barriers to immigrants’ access to health and human services programs. Retrieved from http://taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/413260-Barriers-to-Immigrants-Access-to-Health-and-Human-Services-Programs.pdf
Vyncke, V., Clercq, B. D., Stevens, V., Costongs, C., Barbareschi, G., Jónsson, S. H., Maes, L. (2013). Does neighbourhood social capital aid in levelling the social gradient in the health and well-being of children and adolescents? A literature review. BMC Public Health, 13(65), 1-18. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-65
