Many more eloquent writers than I am have recently
protested against the separation of migrant children from their parents who
have entered the United States illegally or in the hope of asylum. In the last
day or so, journalists have published descriptions of the reunions of a small
number of the youngest children with their parents. Those descriptions are not
surprising, although they are not what we would expect when we look at the
separations and reunions “adultomorphically”—that is, as if the children should
have the same thoughts and emotions that we adults would have if we were in
their shoes (which they don’t).
What seems to have surprised some people is that 2-
and 3-year-olds who have been very distressed by separation from their parents
do not seem happy when reunited. They often stare as if they don’t recognize
the parent, then begin to cry. Although they have been separated for only a few
weeks, there seems to have been a dramatic impact on their responses to their
parents. If they are followed up for further weeks or even months, it’s predictable
that they will still behave differently than they did before, but that their
behavior now will involve clinging to the parent “insatiably” as well as showing
irritability and easy anger.
Parents who have gone away for a cruise or other
child-free vacation for a couple of weeks, leaving a young child with a
familiar grandparent or babysitter in their own home may recognize some of this
mood and behavior that occurs on their return. Even pick-up after a day in
child care may be fraught in the same way, with the child snubbing the parent
and resisting going-home tasks like putting a jacket on.
Years ago, the attachment theorist John Bowlby made a
short film called “Nine Days in a Residential Nursery” which you can read about
at http://www.robertsonfilms.info/young_children_in_brief_separation.htm.
In this documentary film, we see 17-month-old John who is left in a nursery
while his mother is having another baby. His father visits occasionally. As was
considered normal in the 1940s, the mother is in the hospital for over a week
and the father is not expected to care for John during this time. John’s
distress and difficulties with eating and sleeping are clear, and in short
order he develops a cold as well. There are many other toddlers in the nursery,
some of whom live there full-time and are much more noisy and aggressive than
John is used to. The nurses are kind in an impersonal sort of way, but change
frequently according to their work schedules, and there is no single reliable
person that John can seek for comfort. When John’s mother comes home and comes
to pick him up, he snubs and resists her and she is surprised and distressed.
Whether her own distress increases John’s is not discussed.
John’s experience has some but not all the elements
experienced by young migrant children separated from their parents. The
separation is abrupt and inexplicable from his point of view and he does not
have enough language development to ask or understand what is happening. He is
placed in a completely strange physical environment, with strange and
ever-changing caregivers, and with large numbers of other children. No one
knows (or apparently cares much) about his own familiar habits, his
expectations, or his ways of communicating that work well with his parents but
not with strangers. When his mother returns, she too is distressed, and her
face tells him that something scary is happening—he can’t know that it is his
own behavior that is scaring her.
In addition to all these elements they share with
John, today’s separated migrant children
have already been brought far from their familiar homes and have missed their
usual schedules of eating and sleeping for weeks or months in the past. They
may be suffering from untreated illnesses at a time of life when fatigue, fear,
sickness, or injury would normally make them seek comfort from familiar caregivers
who are now absent. Whatever language development they have attained is of
little use if caregivers do not speak their languages. The children’s forced
removal from their parents is carried out by intimidating people, frightening
both parent and child, and the parent’s expression of fear, added to the
probably grim expression of the official, add to distress. The separation then
lasts for much longer than what John experienced and in some cases will
undoubtedly become permanent. Even when reunion occurs, the parents’ fear,
depression, and distress during their own detention make it difficult for them
to respond sensitively to the children’s needs.
Without wanting to get into the morass of discussion
about separation of migrant parents and children, I do want to point out that
the young children’s experiences do not have to be so distressing. It would
cost money to make them less so, so I am sure this won’t happen. However, John
and Joyce Robertson, colleagues of John Bowlby, showed that the distress of separated
toddlers and preschoolers was much less if they had a consistent, predictable,
sensitive, responsive caregiver who would work to understand their
communications and to offer comfort and help as needed. Insights from child
care can also be helpful in supporting young children in these stressful
conditions; for example, not only is it important to have a low ratio of
children to caregivers, but young children do best in small groups rather than
in a large room with many children and adults. Caregivers trained in sensitive
practices like Floortime can also buffer the effects of the adverse experiences
of separated children.
But, as I said, that would all cost money…
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