Sharing Web Resources

Over the past few weeks, the effects of poverty in early childhood have stood out to me in many ways.  I find myself analyzing the children within my classroom and being more observant of the communities around me, many of which are poverty stricken. From week to week we read articles that further support the idea that children that are exposed to poverty experience an increased risk of poor health, dropping out of school, engaging in criminal activity and violence.

The Child Defense Fund website contains a Protect the Children not Guns fact sheet. This caught my eye because again children exposed to poverty are more likely to engage in criminal activity and in my community where gin violence is prominent, gun safety is important to me. Even more so, because in our most recent weeks, it seems as though, I have come across an increased number of articles where children are dying as a result of the improper care and safety of guns in homes or gun violence in general.

“The year 2014 reversed a seven-year decline in child and teen gun deaths in America. In that same year a child or teen died from a gun every 3 hours and 28 minutes. In addition, guns killed more children under 5 in 2014 than law enforcement officers in the line of duty. A gun in the home makes the likelihood of homicide three times higher, suicide three to five times higher, and accidental death four times higher. For each time a gun in the home injures or kills in self-defense, there are 11 completed and attempted gun suicides, seven criminal assaults and homicides with a gun, and four unintentional shooting deaths or injuries.(Children’s Defense Fund, 2015)”

It is important that we educate our communities as much as possible on as much as possible, because it is that exposure and awareness that may potentially save lives.

References:

Children’s Defense Fund Protect Children Not Guns ... (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2016, from http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/data/2014-gun-report-fact-sheet.pdf