Something I encountered during the project is the mental health of low-income children. Poverty and domestic stressors at home stunt child development (Azzi-Lessing, 2010), while low SES families often experience poorer family relations and said domestic stressors (Rothwell & Han, 2010). This leads to higher rates of mental health problems in later life (Reiss, 2013) and lower socio-emotional resiliency (Thompson, Coresello, McReynolds & Conklin-Powers, 2013). Low SES children also may display more insecure attachment styles (Schecter, 2013), possibly due to poorer parental mental health which negatively affects parent-child bonds and results in insecure attachment (Hosokawa & Katsura, 2018).

I experienced this with the children I handled. Many of them became quickly attached to us and were upset whenever our attention shifted. By the first session, a student had become upset and unwilling to participate when he was not paired up with Dinah for an activity, whom he liked. He only became compliant when Dinah agreed to take him. Another child was very physically affectionate with us and would even sit in our laps, complaining when Sundaaree or Yi Xue was not beside her. Lastly was a child who constantly held hands with the facilitators and said, ‘I want you!’. Hence, they might have unmet socio-emotional needs as they seemed insecure in their relationships with us. I was sad about this as I feel children deserve to grow up in secure, loving environments. 

Therefore, it is important that I do my part in helping to improve the mental health of low SES children. One possible way I could eliminate this problem is a parental education intervention for low SES parents, to improve quality of interaction between parents and children and by extension, their relationship. This was suggested by Hosokawa and Katsura (2018) and the Early Childhood Development Agency has a pilot programme named ‘KidSTART’, where professionals support parents in areas of child growth, health and nutrition with knowledge (Early Childhood Development Agency, 2019). Families that have children enrolled into student care centres for low-income families could be allowed to participate in such a programme so while they have care centres taking care of their children when they are working, they still enjoy supportive parent-child bonds. 

Through the project, I became more assertive. In the first session, I never spoke to the children sternly even when they were misbehaving, as I feared hurting their feelings. There was even a moment when one of the students convinced me to allow her to go to the toilet by herself. She had insisted that it would only take a while and she would be back soon and without the other facilitators around to advise me, I ended up agreeing to let her go by herself. Subsequently, the other facilitators let me know I should have been firmer in saying no to her. Hence, in the next session, we told the children they were to be strictly accompanied by a facilitator at all times. I became more assertive and firmer afterwards, chiding them for not paying attention and misbehaving. 

This inability to be assertive has affected my interpersonal relationships. Commonly, I get persuaded into doing things for others that I did not want to do. As such, I understand this is an area I have to work on. I could create a list of areas in my life where I am adequately assertive enough or not, and understand what I do that makes those areas so. For example, I am under-assertive in setting boundaries in relationships. As such, I can begin practicing assertiveness here by initiating more conversations with my friends and those close to me about things they do that may upset me without them knowing. Slowly, this will build up my confidence and capabilities in being more assertive.

As a result of completing this reflection, I learned:
1.    More about the negative effects low SES can have on children’s mental health.
2.    Assertiveness when interacting with others. This learning assertiveness matters because balance is key to having healthy relationships.

In light of this learning, in the future I will increase outreach efforts to low SES parents to teach them effective parenting skills and practice assertiveness in my personal relationships more.