Do children born into poverty ever succeed?
Emmy Werner, who is nicknamed “Mother of Resilience,” is credited with doing the initial groundwork in this field. She did a 30-year study of the inhabitants of the Kauai Island. There were 505 people in this study born in 1955. Half of the children of workers of the sugar plantation were born into poverty. When the sugar industry fell upon hard times, it almost guaranteed that these children would remain in poverty. The conditions of these children’s environment included fear, abuse, and alcoholism. Werner states that if one uses the victim-theory to predict what would happen to these children, one would say that by the time these children are in their twenties, they would be destined to live a life of crime, alcoholism, unemployment and life of despair. Her findings showed that one-third of these children did not fall apart at all. In fact, they all did well in school and began promising careers. All of these survivors defined themselves as being competent adults. Werner published a
Emmy Werner, who is nicknamed “Mother of Resilience,” is credited with doing the initial groundwork in this field. She did a 30-year study of the inhabitants of the Kauai Island. There were 505 people in this study born in 1955. Half of the children of workers of the sugar plantation were born into poverty. When the sugar industry fell upon hard times, it almost guaranteed that these children would remain in poverty. The conditions of these children’s environment included fear, abuse, and alcoholism. Werner states that if one uses the victim-theory to predict what would happen to these children, one would say that by the time these children are in their twenties, they would be destined to live a life of crime, alcoholism, unemployment and life of despair. Her findings showed that one-third of these children did not fall apart at all. In fact, they all did well in school and began promising careers. All of these survivors defined themselves as being competent adults. Werner published a
