Social problems affecting infants and children

Social Problem: Peer Acceptance of Children with AIDS

Like most tragedies of modern society, AIDS have by far the worst effect on the most vulnerable in society: the children. Children are not only orphaned in their millions as a result of this disease, they are often also left with its legacy in their own broken immune systems. As such, they have relatively short and painful lives to look forward to. This is not least because of being socially rejected by their peers. Social rejection is the result of multiple causes, some of which are examined here.

It is a common adage that young children tend to be cruel towards each other, and particularly towards those perceived as vulnerable or different in some way. According to Maieron, Roberts & Prentice-Dunn (1996), for example, one of the primary reasons for peer rejection is the fact that children have a relatively inadequate understanding of the disease: they fear for example being infected themselves as a result of contact.

On a different level, this fear is often reinforced by the adult community and particularly teachers at school, who have a similarly inadequate understanding of the disease. Being made to feel vulnerable because of their status, children with the disease find it difficult to overcome marginalization and therefore tend to group together for self-protection, but ironically perpetuating the isolation.

Children with AIDS are often poor and orphaned, further setting them apart from their peers. This further results in poor school performance and a deadly cycle of being labeled not only as "sick," but also as "stupid." Peer pressures such as these have a greatly detrimental affect on the future of such children, and could even result in much earlier illness and death than necessary. Not having much hope of any future at all, such children are seldom encouraged to try to perform at school. At the fundamental level, the problem is a lack of education for both the peers and authority figures who work with these children; this lack perpetuates the problem.