Effects of Traumatic Separation on Children
June 21, 2018 10:03 AM Subscribe
A collection of links for educating oneself or others about the impacts of trauma on the very youngest of us. What forcible separation does to children: brains, bodies, nervous systems.
What Forcible Separation Does to Children:
What separation from parents does to children: 'The effect is catastrophic'
Toxic Stress overview and video overview
Video - Toxic Stress Derails Healthy Development
How the toxic stress of family separation can harm a child
Nervous System Symptoms of Hyper and Hypo Arousal
The Impact of Trauma on Infants
Child Mind Institute - About Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Resources specifically for professionals (could also be useful to layfolk:)
Children with Traumatic Separation
Trauma and Mental Health Needs of Immigrant Minors Part One
Trauma and Mental Health Needs of Immigrant Minors Part Two
NCTSN Resources Related to Traumatic Separation and Refugee & Immigrant Trauma
What Forcible Separation Does to Children:
What separation from parents does to children: 'The effect is catastrophic'
Toxic Stress overview and video overview
Video - Toxic Stress Derails Healthy Development
How the toxic stress of family separation can harm a child
Nervous System Symptoms of Hyper and Hypo Arousal
The Impact of Trauma on Infants
Child Mind Institute - About Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Resources specifically for professionals (could also be useful to layfolk:)
Children with Traumatic Separation
Trauma and Mental Health Needs of Immigrant Minors Part One
Trauma and Mental Health Needs of Immigrant Minors Part Two
NCTSN Resources Related to Traumatic Separation and Refugee & Immigrant Trauma
As a note of acknowledgement to you for the work of pulling this together; I want to recognize the importance of this even as my own frustration and sadness means I won’t be clicking these links. So, I just wish to lift up those who are engaging in the hard work of acknowledging, understanding and responding to events in our world today.
posted by meinvt at 10:41 AM on June 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by meinvt at 10:41 AM on June 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
For a month or so now, I've been reading Robert Karen's Becoming Attached, which is a book detailing how we came to understand that early attachment is important in the first place. There are a lot of unpleasant outcomes for children with early separations listed, particularly some of the children originally studied by John Bowlby. Many of the original reasons for disruptions in attachment between child and parent-figure are institutional in nature: hospitals that felt parents would negatively disrupt the order of nurses on a pediatric medical ward, for example, or classist ideas about who could give children the "best" care and upbringing, or attempts to protect the feelings of caregivers by preventing bonds between caregiver and child until the child can be sent to a "real" permanent home.
If anyone wants an in-depth look at the studies that have informed the enormous blaring do not separate small children from their parents or parent figures alarms we're all passing around, I recommend it. I'm not sure I would have picked it up once learning of this inhumane and cruel treatment, but I do think that it's a solid, engaging, and thoughtful read that is deeply informing my repulsed reaction to this administration.
posted by sciatrix at 10:52 AM on June 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
If anyone wants an in-depth look at the studies that have informed the enormous blaring do not separate small children from their parents or parent figures alarms we're all passing around, I recommend it. I'm not sure I would have picked it up once learning of this inhumane and cruel treatment, but I do think that it's a solid, engaging, and thoughtful read that is deeply informing my repulsed reaction to this administration.
posted by sciatrix at 10:52 AM on June 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
And... I keep going back and forth on adding this, but the studies are clear: attachment disruptions and traumas like the ones this administration is perpetuating are the kinds of things that can create adults who have no reason to refrain from hurting others.
This policy isn't just cruel, it's not just heartless, it's not just ineffective. It's also a policy that is likely to result in strain to both American and Mexican judicial systems as well as childcare and other intervention systems in twenty years. It's a policy that will generate more people who are fucked up, traumatized, and have reduced resources both for self-care and care of others.
Even if you yourself are an active sociopath who is only interested in yourself, it is in the interest of no one to produce more traumatized children with very little left to lose. If you intend to be in North America in the next two or three decades, you want to minimize the number of traumatized children and poor traumatized children around you--because while not all traumatized children grow up to be abusive, violent, or criminal adults, attachment disruption, abuse, and trauma are at the root of almost all of these outcomes, and increasing the average trauma level in the area or severely disrupting attachments of many small children drastically increases the likelihood that you produce the subset of people who go on to harm the society you live in. And if you wait long enough, that shit will come back to bite you and yours.
This policy will produce a trickle-down of pain that goes on to create echoes of harm through the system for generations as a result of these traumas. And it's so fucking incredibly unnecessary.
posted by sciatrix at 11:05 AM on June 21, 2018 [14 favorites]
This policy isn't just cruel, it's not just heartless, it's not just ineffective. It's also a policy that is likely to result in strain to both American and Mexican judicial systems as well as childcare and other intervention systems in twenty years. It's a policy that will generate more people who are fucked up, traumatized, and have reduced resources both for self-care and care of others.
Even if you yourself are an active sociopath who is only interested in yourself, it is in the interest of no one to produce more traumatized children with very little left to lose. If you intend to be in North America in the next two or three decades, you want to minimize the number of traumatized children and poor traumatized children around you--because while not all traumatized children grow up to be abusive, violent, or criminal adults, attachment disruption, abuse, and trauma are at the root of almost all of these outcomes, and increasing the average trauma level in the area or severely disrupting attachments of many small children drastically increases the likelihood that you produce the subset of people who go on to harm the society you live in. And if you wait long enough, that shit will come back to bite you and yours.
This policy will produce a trickle-down of pain that goes on to create echoes of harm through the system for generations as a result of these traumas. And it's so fucking incredibly unnecessary.
posted by sciatrix at 11:05 AM on June 21, 2018 [14 favorites]
My lady is just finishing up her psych doc and has been having a lot of group discussions with coworkers about childhood trauma. Just like the climate debate, the majority find this monstrous and a tiny minority is screaming, "Why do you have to politicize this?"
For Christs sake. Advocating for children, like advocating for the environment, is a non-partisan issue right up until the right makes it one.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:05 AM on June 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
For Christs sake. Advocating for children, like advocating for the environment, is a non-partisan issue right up until the right makes it one.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:05 AM on June 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
My lady is just finishing up her psych doc and has been having a lot of group discussions with coworkers about childhood trauma. Just like the climate debate, the majority find this monstrous and a tiny minority is screaming, "Why do you have to politicize this?"
Anyone who has this response should not be allowed to be a psychologist, Jesus fuck
posted by schadenfrau at 11:12 AM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Anyone who has this response should not be allowed to be a psychologist, Jesus fuck
posted by schadenfrau at 11:12 AM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
I also just read this account, wherein the author crossed the Soviet border in 1988. She was briefly separated by Soviet authorities from her mother, with the result that a large patch of her hair fall out overnight, and she wet the bed for two years.
This separation lasted about a day and did not remove her from her brother, her father, or her grandfather. She was eight.
It's... not a good thing that we treat children worse than Soviet border guards did.
posted by puffyn at 12:10 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
This separation lasted about a day and did not remove her from her brother, her father, or her grandfather. She was eight.
It's... not a good thing that we treat children worse than Soviet border guards did.
posted by puffyn at 12:10 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm told I completely flipped my little wig when I was two and Mom had to be in the hospital for two weeks. I can't imagine how these kids must be hurting.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:41 PM on June 21, 2018
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:41 PM on June 21, 2018
This ran in our local paper today: I know what family separation looks like.
posted by Quasirandom at 1:11 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Quasirandom at 1:11 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
And beyond the psychological costs which are horrible and beyond sad, the cost of educating these kids, who will require extensive special educational support their entire academic lives, will cost in the neighborhood of $200,000 EXTRA PER CHILD at least. That's assuming they do not require therapeutic schools and can receive services in public schools.
Take 10,000 kids, $200k each.
This is going to cost us over $2,000,000,000 and that's just for public school education. Let's not even imagine the social services these kids will need in order to function.
I have no words for how sick this makes me.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:13 PM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Take 10,000 kids, $200k each.
This is going to cost us over $2,000,000,000 and that's just for public school education. Let's not even imagine the social services these kids will need in order to function.
I have no words for how sick this makes me.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:13 PM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
I think we need a Voight-Trumpff test:
"You see a small child in a chain link cage. She's crying for her mother. What do you do?"
Trumper: "Is she an immigrant?"
posted by benzenedream at 1:26 PM on June 21, 2018 [11 favorites]
"You see a small child in a chain link cage. She's crying for her mother. What do you do?"
Trumper: "Is she an immigrant?"
posted by benzenedream at 1:26 PM on June 21, 2018 [11 favorites]
...the cost of educating these kids, who will require extensive special educational support their entire academic lives, will cost in the neighborhood of $200,000 EXTRA PER CHILD at least. That's assuming they do not require therapeutic schools and can receive services in public schools.
Take 10,000 kids, $200k each....
Shit.
I could probably find you 10,000 second or third generation American kids in 10 different major cities that desperately need specialized educational support as well as physical and mental health care who aren't getting what they need. We do not value children in this society.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:42 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Take 10,000 kids, $200k each....
Shit.
I could probably find you 10,000 second or third generation American kids in 10 different major cities that desperately need specialized educational support as well as physical and mental health care who aren't getting what they need. We do not value children in this society.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:42 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
the kinds of things that can create adults who have no reason to refrain from hurting others
To speak to this from my personal experience, anaclitic depression reduces or removes the ability to bond emotionally with others. So it is not a desire to harm others but rather, as you said, a lack of concern about hurting others. It's something essential that's missing, not something wicked that compels antisocial behavior.
posted by SPrintF at 3:55 PM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
To speak to this from my personal experience, anaclitic depression reduces or removes the ability to bond emotionally with others. So it is not a desire to harm others but rather, as you said, a lack of concern about hurting others. It's something essential that's missing, not something wicked that compels antisocial behavior.
posted by SPrintF at 3:55 PM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
From one of my FB adoptee groups today, a link that I have been seeing reshared a bunch in that context.
"...please hear this: If these children are fostered and/or adopted to ANYONE they will have 100% been trafficked by the United States government."
Over the past few years I believe I have come to see a consensus forming among adoptees online, at least within the context of adoptee-identified affinity groups, around the phrase "adoption is trauma," reflecting the links and developing data above. This child-separation bullshit at the border has provoked extremely strong emotions in these groups.
posted by mwhybark at 5:09 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
"...please hear this: If these children are fostered and/or adopted to ANYONE they will have 100% been trafficked by the United States government."
Over the past few years I believe I have come to see a consensus forming among adoptees online, at least within the context of adoptee-identified affinity groups, around the phrase "adoption is trauma," reflecting the links and developing data above. This child-separation bullshit at the border has provoked extremely strong emotions in these groups.
posted by mwhybark at 5:09 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
The FB poster, Liz Latty, directly supports yes I will I said Yes' cost estimate on a per-child annualized basis of $20k.
posted by mwhybark at 5:12 PM on June 21, 2018
posted by mwhybark at 5:12 PM on June 21, 2018
Chemo therapy is poisoning a patient to hopefully treat a more deadly condition, though it causes harm and has risks of death as well. It is only justified because it is treating something worse.
Detaining children and detaining parents and detaining them separately are all very very harmful.... what is the condition this treats? Republicans are scared that white people won't retain control. Many admit as much. This is state sponsored racially targeted child abuse, it is a crime, it is a crime against humanity, the perpetrators and those who give them material aid should be brought to justice, this child abuse will only stop when the political party that is using its power to do so is removed from power. Racism is a poison and we have drank so much of it that we are torturing children and their parents to initimidate an entire ethnic group.
Ending this policy is bot enough, but very necessary
Reparations are not enough but very necessary
Getting these republican monsters out power is not enough but very necessary
Getting these republican monsters behind bars for their crimes and de-nazifying the republican party is essential
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 7:55 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Detaining children and detaining parents and detaining them separately are all very very harmful.... what is the condition this treats? Republicans are scared that white people won't retain control. Many admit as much. This is state sponsored racially targeted child abuse, it is a crime, it is a crime against humanity, the perpetrators and those who give them material aid should be brought to justice, this child abuse will only stop when the political party that is using its power to do so is removed from power. Racism is a poison and we have drank so much of it that we are torturing children and their parents to initimidate an entire ethnic group.
Ending this policy is bot enough, but very necessary
Reparations are not enough but very necessary
Getting these republican monsters out power is not enough but very necessary
Getting these republican monsters behind bars for their crimes and de-nazifying the republican party is essential
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 7:55 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
benzenedream, I love that comment so much I memed it.
posted by EarBucket at 7:58 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by EarBucket at 7:58 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
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