Abstract
The growing discrepancy in family wealth has created two sets of young people: those with educated, thriving parents and those with less-educated, poor parents. Only 31% of our children have all of the five basic supports thought to be needed for optimal healthy development. One-third have significant educational, health, mental health, or behavioral problems. Disruptive behavior in many schools necessitates the presence of police. An increasing cohort of children is growing up uncontrollable and unreachable because they did not form secure attachment bonds during early life. They do not have functioning consciences.
Never before have we subjected our children to the tyranny of drugs and guns and things or taught them to look for meaning outside rather than inside themselves, teaching them in Dr. King’s words “to judge success by the value of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity.”
Marian Wright Edelman, 1995, Children’s Defense Fund (Edelman 1995)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health]. (2012). In R.A. Etzel, & S.J. Balk (Eds.), Pediatric environmental health, 3rd ed. Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics.
ACF [Administration on Children, Youth, and Families]. (2009). Child maltreatment 2009. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/archive/cb/resource/child-maltreatment-2009. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Altman, I. (2017, October 11). Student discipline cited as reason teachers are leaving CMSD. The Dispatch [Columbus and Starkville, Mississippi]. http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=61268. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2018). KIDS COUNT data book, state trends in child well-being. https://www.aecf.org/resources/2018-kids-count-data-book/. Accessed 21 Sept 2018.
APA [American Pediatric Association]. (2012). Early childhood adversity, toxic stress, and the role of the pediatrician: Translating developmental science into lifelong health. Pediatrics, 129(1), e224–e231. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2662. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/1/e224. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Roehlkepartain, E. C., & Leffert, N. (2011). A fragile foundation: The state of developmental assets among American youth. Minneapolis: Search Institute.
CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. (2017). Teen drivers: Get the facts. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html. Accessed 6 July 2018.
CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. (2018a). Child abuse and neglect: Consequences. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/consequences.html. Accessed 6 July 2018.
CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. (2018b). CDC releases youth risk behaviors survey results. https://www.cdc.gov/features/yrbs/index.html. Accessed 6 July 2018.
CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. (2018c). Sexual risk behaviors: HIV, STD, & teen pregnancy prevention. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/sexualbehaviors/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Cheng, W., et al. (2015). Alcohol use among adolescent youth: The role of friendship networks and family factors in multiple school studies. PLoS One, 10(3), e0119965. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4355410/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Child Trends. (2012). Child trends data bank. https://www.childtrends.org/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Eaton, D. K., Kann, L., Kinchen, S. A., et al. (2012). Youth risk behavior surveillance—United States, 2011. CDC Morbidity Mortality Surveillance Summary, 61(SS-04), 1–162.
Gottlieb, L. (2005). The XY files. The Atlantic, 296(2), 141–150. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/09/the-xy-files/304172/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Hamilton, B. E., Rossen, L. M., & Branum, A. M. (2016). Teen birth rates for urban and rural areas in the United States, 2007–2015 (NCHS data brief, no 264). Hyattsville: National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db264.htm. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Hawkins, A. (2012). 440+ school age children shot in gun-controlled Chicago. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/12/24/chicago-is-gun-control-capital-of-u-s-yet-over-440-school-age-children-shot-there-in-2012/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Hess, F. (2006, May). What to think, not how to think. Education Matters. https://www.aaeteachers.org/newsletters/maynews06.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., Miech, R. A., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2017). Monitoring the future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2016: Overview, key findings on adolescent drug use. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan. http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtf-overview2016.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Keyes, C. L. M. (2006). Mental health in adolescence. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76(3), 395–402.
Kopelwicz, H. S., Gurian, A., & Williams, K. (2009). The era of affluence and its discontents. Journal of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 48(11), 1053–1055.
Lang, S. (2005, September 26). Urie Bronfenbrenner, father of Head Start program and pre-eminent ‘human ecologist,’ dies at age 88. Cornell Chronicle. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/09/head-start-founder-urie-bronfenbrenner-dies-88. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Madison Metropolitan School District. (n.d.). https://www.madison.k12.wi.us/majorgrowth. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Martin, J. A., Hamilton, B., et al. (2017). Births: Final data for 2015. National Vital Statistics Reports, 66(1). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Miringoff, M., & Miringoff, M. L. (1999). The social health of the nation: How America is really doing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moynihan, D. P. (1993–1994). Defining deviancy down: How we’ve become accustomed to alarming levels of crime and destructive behavior. American Educator. https://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/defining-deviancy-down-amereducator.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
National Crime Prevention Council. (n.d.). Bullying. http://archive.ncpc.org/topics/bullying.html. Accessed 6 July 2018.
NCES [National Center for Education Statistics]. (2018). Public high school graduation rates. (Last Updated: May 2018). https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp. Accessed 6 July 2018.
NCSL [National Conference of State Legislatures]. (2018). Teen pregnancy intervention. http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/teen-pregnancy-prevention.aspx. Accessed 6 July 2018.
OAS [Office of Applied Studies]. (2008). The NSDUH report: Misuse of over-the-counter cough and cold medications among persons aged 12–25. Rockville: SAMHS. http://homelesshub.ca/resource/misuse-over-counter-cough-and-cold-medications-among-persons-aged-12-25. Accessed 6 July 2018.
OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]. (2018). PISA 2015 results in focus. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
OJJDP [Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention]. (2017). Department of Justice statistical briefing book, Juvenile Arrest Rate Trends. https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Perper, K., & Manlove, J. (2009). Vulnerable youth: A closer look at reproductive outcomes. Putting what works to work September. Washington, DC: Child Trends.
Power to Decide. (2016). Teen pregnancy national data. https://powertodecide.org/what-we-do/information/national-state-data/national. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Ross, T., Kena, G., Rathbun, A., Kewal Ramani, A., Zhang, J., Kristapovich, P., & Manning, E. (2012). Higher education: Gaps in access and persistence study (NCES 2012-046). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012046.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
SAMHSA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration]. (2012). Results from the 2011 National survey on drug use and health: Summary of national findings. NSDUH Series H-44, HHS Publication No. (SMA) 12-4713. https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUHresults2012/NSDUHresults2012.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
SAMHSA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration]. (2016). Reports and detailed tables from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). https://www.samhsa.gov/samhsa-data-outcomes-quality/major-data-collections/reports-detailed-tables-2016-NSDUH. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Schorow, S. (2008). Wilson perceives social structure and culture as key causes of poverty. The Harvard Gazette, October 9. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/10/wilson-perceives-social-structure-and-culture-as-key-causes-of-poverty/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Schultz, Z. (2009). Update: Columbus teen dies after “Choking Game.” WMTV-15 Madison, WI. http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/50646502.html. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Search Institute. (1997). https://www.search-institute.org/our-research/development-assets/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
SLJ. (2011). U.S. students rank 32 in math proficiency, 17 in reading, study says. School Library Journal. August 23, 2011. https://www.slj.com/2011/08/students/u-s-students-rank-32-in-math-proficiency-17-in-reading-study-says/#_. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Suttenfield, K. (2001). Report of the surgeon general’s conference on children’s mental health: A national action agenda. Mental Health eJournal, 6(1). https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/430538. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Thakrar, A. P., Forrest, A. D., Maltenfort, M., & Forrest, C. B. (2018). Child mortality in the US and 19 OECD comparator nations: A 50-year time-trend analysis. Health Affairs, 37(1), 140–149. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0767.
Vitanna Organization. (n.d.). Teen pregnancy and poverty. https://vittana.org/teen-pregnancy-and-poverty. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Watts, L. (2011, February 28). Number of “dropout factories” declines. Johns Hopkins Magazine. http://archive.magazine.jhu.edu/2011/02/number-of-%E2%80%9Cdropout-factories%E2%80%9D-declines/. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Weinstock, H., et al. (2004). Sexually transmitted diseases among American youth. Perspectives on Sexual & Reproductive Health, 36, 6–10.
Weissbourd, R. (1997). The vulnerable child: What really hurts America’s children and what we can do about it. New York: Da Capo Lifelong Books.
WHO. (2001). Mental health: A call for action by world health ministers. http://www.who.int/mental_health/advocacy/en/Call_for_Action_MoH_Intro.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Westman, J.C. (2019). How Are Children in the United States Doing?. In: Dealing with Child Abuse and Neglect as Public Health Problems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05897-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05897-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05896-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05897-5
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)