Parent-child Separations Research Articles

Parent-Child Separations and Mental Health among First Nations and Métis Peoples in Canada: Links to Intergenerational Residential School Attendance.

First Nations children are over 17 times more likely to be removed from their families and placed in the child welfare system (CWS) than non-Indigenous children in Canada. The high rates of parent-child separation have been linked to discriminatory public services and the Indian Residential School (IRS) system, which instigated a multi-generational cycle of family disruption. However, limited empirical evidence exists linking the IRS to subsequent parent-child separations, the CWS, and mental health outcomes among First Nations, Inuit, and Métis populations in Canada. The current studies examine these relationships using a nationally representative sample of First Nations youth (ages 12–17 years) living in communities across Canada (Study 1), and among First Nations and Métis adults (ages 18+ years) in Canada (Study 2). Study 1 revealed that First Nations youth with a parent who attended IRS had increased odds of not living with either of their biological parents, and both IRS and not living with biological parents independently predicted greater psychological distress. Similarly, Study 2 revealed that First Nations and Métis adults with familial IRS history displayed greater odds of spending time in the CWS, and both IRS and CWS predicted elevated depressive symptoms. The increased distress and depressive symptoms associated with parent-child separations calls for First Nations-led interventions to address the inequities in the practices of removing Indigenous children and youth from their families.

Unseen Costs: The Direct and Indirect Impact of U.S. Immigration Policies on Child and Adolescent Health and Well-Being.

Shifts in migration and border control policies may increase the likelihood of trauma exposure related to child–parent separation and result in costs to the health system and society. In the present study, we estimated direct and indirect costs per child as well as overall cohort costs of border control policies on migrant children and adolescents who were separated from their parents, detained, and placed in the custody of the United States following the implementation of the 2018 Zero Tolerance Policy. Economic modeling techniques, including a Markov process and Monte Carlo simulation, based on data from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's Core Data Set (N = 458 migrant youth) and published studies were used to estimate economic costs associated with three immigration policies: No Detention, Family Detention, and Zero Tolerance. Clinical evaluation data on mental health symptoms and disorders were used to estimate the initial health state and risks associated with additional trauma exposure for each scenario. The total direct and indirect costs per child were conservatively estimated at $33,008, $33,790, and $34,544 after 5 years for No Detention, Family Detention, and Zero Tolerance, respectively. From a health system perspective, annual estimated spending increases ranged from $1.5 million to $14.9 million for Family Detention and $2.8 million to $29.3 million for Zero Tolerance compared to baseline spending under the No Detention scenario. Border control policies that increase the likelihood of child and adolescent trauma exposure are not only morally troubling but may also create additional economic concerns in the form of direct health care costs and indirect societal costs.

Do Transnational Child-Raising Arrangements Affect Job Outcomes of Migrant Parents? Comparing Angolan Parents in Transnational and NonTransnational Families in the Netherlands.

Transnational family literature has established that parent–child separations affect negatively on the emotional well-being of migrant parents. Less attention has been paid to other effects separation can have on these parents’ lives. Building on insights from transnational family studies and organizational psychology, this article explores the potential link between transnational family life and job outcomes. In particular, two potential negative outcomes are analyzed—job instability and job absenteeism—by comparing Angolan parents whose children live in Angola with Angolans who live with all their children in the Netherlands. Based on mechanisms identified by organizational psychology literature, mediation analysis is conducted. Results indicate that transnational family life increases the times migrant parents change jobs, which is partly mediated by low levels of happiness. Further analyses indicate that especially transnational parents who have limited contact with their children change jobs more often. No significant differences are found with regard to job absenteeism.

Immigration Enforcement, Parent-Child Separations, and Intent to Remigrate by Central American Deportees.

Given the unprecedented increase in the flow of migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to the United States, this article analyzes the impact of U.S. interior enforcement on parent-child separations among Central American deportees, along with its implications for deportees' intentions to remigrate to the United States. Using the EMIF sur survey data, we find that interior enforcement raises the likelihood of parent-child separations as well as the likelihood that parents forcedly separated from their young children report the intention to return to the United States, presumably without documents. By increasing parent-child separations, interior enforcement could prove counterproductive in deterring repetitive unauthorized crossings among Central American deportees.

Examining the Effects of Mexican Serial Migration and Family Separations on Acculturative Stress, Depression, and Family Functioning

This study examined the role of parent-child separations during serial migration to the United States in predicting individual- and family-level outcomes in Mexican immigrant families. We assessed parents’ subjective appraisals of their family’s separation and reunion experiences to explore associations with self-reported acculturative stress, depression and family functioning. Data were collected from an urban, low-income community sample of Mexican immigrant parents ( N = 53). Seventy percent ( N = 37) of the parents experienced a separation from at least one child during immigration. Separated status parents reported significantly higher levels of acculturative stress, but no significant differences were found between separated and nonseparated status parents on depression or family functioning. Findings also revealed that negative appraisals of the family’s reunion experience were associated with higher levels of acculturative stress, depression, and unhealthy family functioning. We discuss the implications for future research to address the mental health of Mexican immigrant families in the United States.

‘Joyful convulsions’: Dickens’s Comings and Goings

When Dickens returned home from his six-month tour of America in 1842, his eldest son Charley, aged five, nearly died of joy at being reunited with his parents. Focusing on Dickens’s complex emotions as a father, this article considers his response to the wild emotionalism of partings and reunions, first within his own family, as he dispatched his young sons to careers in the colonies, and then in his treatment of parent–child separations in some of his novels. As a father who frequently played down the drama of ‘real life’ partings in his family, it considers the gap, in <em>Dombey and Son</em> and <em>Bleak House</em>, between the child’s impulse for reconciliation, and the parent’s shame or silence. The family reunion that segues unstoppably into another parting becomes a way of confronting failed elements that in terms of Dickens’s domestic ideology cannot be subsumed invisibly into a new and improved version of the family. With fathers, however, the outlook is more hopeful than with mothers, and Dickens shows how the prospects of reunion between errant daughters and unforgiving fathers are ultimately more positive than those between errant mothers and forgiving daughters.

The Separation Anxiety Daily Diary: Child Version: Feasibility and Psychometric Properties

This report describes the feasibility and psychometric properties of the child version of the Separation Anxiety Daily Diary (SADD-C) in 125 children (ages 7-14 years) from German-speaking areas of Switzerland. Children with separation anxiety disorder (SAD; n = 58), "other" anxiety disorders (n = 36), and healthy controls (n = 31) recorded the frequency of parent-child separations, along with associated anxiety, thoughts, reactions and subsequent parental responses. Compliance rates were modest, consistent with past research on self-report diaries with anxious children. The SADD-C was better at discriminating children with SAD from controls than "other anxious" children. The SADD-C demonstrated good convergent validity with maternal and child self-reported anxiety (Revised Child Manifest Anxiety Scale, Separation Anxiety Inventory) and perceived quality of life (Inventory for Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents). Results provide support for the SADD-C as an acceptable and valid method of assessing child symptoms and parent behavior on separation. Findings are discussed with regard to the clinical utility of the SADD-C and strategies to improve compliance.

Continuities and Discontinuities

Using the migration narratives collected during a qualitative study of immigrant adolescent girls from 35 nations living in New York City, this article explores the intersection between adolescence and migration, and how adolescent immigrant girls' family relationships are impacted by the pattern of their migration. Unit of migration, e.g. intact family, parent/child, and/or process of migration e.g. mother-first and prolonged parent-child separations, were found to frequently presage positive or negative post-arrival family experiences. The findings suggest the need for social work scholars and practitioners to focus more on the dynamic intersection of migration patterns and adolescent development. The article identifies specific interventions that may reduce the occurrence of immigrant related stresses amongst adolescents, as well as areas for further research.

Collaborative Practice Extended Parent–Child Separations: Impact on Substance‐Abusing Hispanic Adolescents

Collaborative Practice Extended Parent–Child Separations: Impact on Substance‐Abusing Hispanic Adolescents

Use of Child Custody as Leverage to Improve Treatment Adherence

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article LettersFull AccessUse of Child Custody as Leverage to Improve Treatment AdherenceJoanne Nicholson, Ph.D.Joanne NicholsonSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D.Published Online:1 Mar 2005https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.56.3.357-aAboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail To the Editor: In the January 2005 issue John Monahan, Ph.D., and his colleagues (1) reported on tools used in the public mental health system as leverage to improve adherence to psychiatric treatment in the community. Their work brings important attention to leverage strategies that are used even more commonly than outpatient commitment—housing, criminal sanction, and money. If their inquiry had included the child welfare system, they would likely have discovered the use of another form of leverage, that is, the threat or actual loss of custody or contact with children.Parenthood is as prevalent among men and women living in the community who meet diagnostic criteria for mental illness, including serious mental illness, as it is among individuals who do not meet criteria (2). There are no national data on the prevalence of custody loss for these parents. Estimates, typically from studies of mothers with serious mental illness in treatment settings, range as high as 70 to 80 percent (3). These rates are consistent with or exceed those found for use of criminal sanction as leverage by Dr. Monahan and his colleagues among the study participants who had been arrested or convicted. Although no data are available on how these parent-child separations occur, child protective workers, family court judges, or family members may impose compliance with treatment recommendations as a condition for parents to maintain caregiving responsibility, to visit, or to reunite with children.Fear of custody loss is, in fact, a significant deterrent to treatment seeking (4). Parents with mental illnesses express concern that if they disclose their parenting status or, more important, problems with parenting, treatment providers will file reports with child protective services, thereby increasing the probability that they will lose their children.Using the loss of custody or contact with children as leverage may be a double-edged sword. Although the preservation of relationships with children may be a powerful motivator to participate in treatment, the opportunities for failure to achieve parenting goals are great. Even when parents obtain treatment for mental illnesses, substantial progress on parenting goals cannot always be made in the 12-month time frame mandated by the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Psychiatric symptoms, along with contextual variables, are related to community functioning among mothers (5); however, relationships between treatment adherence, reduction in symptoms, and improved parental functioning have not been clearly demonstrated. Evidence-based parenting interventions for adults with mental illnesses may not be available; the public mental health system does little to support these clients as parents (2). And perhaps the only stigma greater than that of mental illness is the stigma associated with failing as a parent. As one mother with serious mental illness reported, "And when they say, 'We're taking what you have left, that's keeping you alive,' … what do you think then? You figure you're a failure completely. You can't even take care of your own children. What's the sense in living?"Dr. Monahan and his coauthors suggest that future research focus on how, whether, and with whom leverage is most effective in improving treatment adherence. The definition of leverage and the focus of research must be broadened to include the threat or actual loss of custody or contact with children.Dr. Nicholson is associate professor of psychiatry and family medicine in the department of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

Childhood parental loss and risk for first-onset of major depression and alcohol dependence: the time-decay of risk and sex differences.

Whereas a number of studies have suggested that parental loss is associated with increased risk for major depression (MD), much less is known about possible gender differences, diagnostic specificity and the time course of the impact of loss. First-onsets for MD and alcohol dependence (AD) were assessed at personal interviews in 5070 twins from same-sex (SS) and 2118 from opposite-sex (OS) twin pairs ascertained from a population-based registry. Cox Proportional Hazard (PH) and Non-Proportional Hazard (NPH) models, examining first onsets of MD and AD, were used with twins from SS pairs and conditional logistic regression for OS pairs. Parent-child separations prior to age 17 were divided into death and separation from other causes. The PH assumptions of constant increased risk were rejected for the impact of loss on risk for MD but not for AD. NPH models found significantly increased risk for MD after both death and separation with the risk lasting much longer for separations. For AD, the PH model found significantly increased risk after parental separation but not death. In both SS and OS twin pairs, no sex differences were seen in the impact of parental loss on risk for MD whereas the association between separation and risk for AD was significantly stronger in females than in males. Consistent sex differences in the association with parental loss were seen for AD but not MD. The analysis of the time-course of increased risk after loss suggests three different patterns which may reflect different relationships: parental death and MD (return to baseline within approximately 12 years), separation and MD (return to baseline within approximately 30 years) and separation and AD (no change in risk over time).

Can we ignore context in the definition of child maltreatment?

Over the last 5 years, the topic of psychological maltreatment has received increasing attention and recognition in the developmental literature. The phenomenon was not discovered 5 years ago, of course: certain aspects of it have been investigated and discussed in conjunction with research on physical abuse and neglect for many years. Only recently, however, have many researchers and clinicians begun to argue that psychological maltreatment should be studied as a distinct phenomenon, rather than simply as one type or facet of child maltreatment (Garbarino, Guttman, &amp; Seeley, 1986). In order to draw attention to this topic, some have even claimed that psychological maltreatment has more serious consequences for the child than physical or sexual abuse do (Hart &amp; Brassard, 1987). Although empirical support for this claim is lacking, we know from other research that “nonphysical” experiences, such as abrupt and extended parent-child separations or marital discord, can have pervasive and long-lasting adverse influences on a child's development (Hess &amp; Camara, 1979; Hetherington, Cox, &amp; Cox, 1982; Rutter, 1979).

Male Adolescent Sexual Offenders: The Offender and the Offense

A group of male adolescent sexual offenders were divided into three groups: Courtship Disorders (Exhibitionism, Toucherism and Obscene Phone Calls), Sexual Assaults, and Pedophilic Offenses. Group I offenders tended to come from a less disorganized family background, were better adjusted to school and in the community and were seen by clinicians as less seriously disturbed than the adolescents in the other two groups. In addition, these adolescents did not experience the offense as a sexual act. Group II offenders (Sexual Assaulters) came from a more disturbed family background characterized by a high rate of long-term parent-child separations, committed more violent offenses and had a higher frequency of intellectual functioning in the Borderline Range of Intelligence. Group III offenders (Pedophilic Offenses) were Canadian born, had witnessed physical violence between their parents, were described as having been infants who did not enjoy being cuddled and had siblings who were truant. This study suggests that classifying adolescent sexual offenders along the line suggested in adult literature seems to be justified.

Parental loss in childhood: relationship to adult psychiatric impairment and contact with psychiatric services.

Both parental death in childhood and parent-child separations (from causes other than death) were assessed in a community survey of psychiatric disorder and in an equivalent sample of psychiatric outpatients from the same community. Symptomatic disorder (psychiatric caseness) and psychiatric illness behavior (patient status) were examined. Symptomatic disorder was defined by comparing community (unreferred) cases with noncases. Illness behavior was specified by comparing the psychiatric outpatients with the community cases. Parental death in childhood bore no relation to either symptomatic disorder in the community sample (psychiatric caseness) or to psychiatric illness behavior (patient status) in adult life. Parent-child separations similarly had no relation to adult symptomatic disorder but were significantly associated with psychiatric illness behavior.