The fear of abandonment.
Children can experience abandonment as the result of any number of events. For example, the loss of life of a parent or caregiver can occur after an environmental disaster like an earthquake, a traumatic accident like a car accident, or after a battle with an incurable disease. Abandonment may occur as the result of a divorce, a parent with substance abuse issues, or long term absences due to military service. Some may say that such long term temporary absences are not abandonment, but to young children, the absence of a person who was once a stable presence in their life can be an early life stress (ELS) that has lasting effects (Gunnar et al., 2009).
Growing up I had 2 friends who experienced abandonment as a result of divorce. One friend was 6-years-old when his mother moved out of the family’s home. It did not seem the affect him much immediately. By about age 10 his father also moved out of the home, leaving him with his adult sister and brother. My friend became withdrawn and argumentative over the course of that summer. I can remember my mother speaking with me about how my friend was feeling. Another friend had a similar situation in which his father left the family when he was 2-years-old and his brother was 4. They were very busy boys who got into a lot of mischief. At ages 11 and 13 they boys were sent to live with their father who that only saw sporadically over the years. They ran away several times (to their maternal grandmother’s home). As a teenager, I watched my friend keep himself socially distant. At one point he chose to live as a homeless person because he felt he could not trust the adults in his life. Both of my friends have grown up to be great men despite the rough beginning. They have used their experience to shape the types of fathers they are today. They both very active participants in their children’s lives every day.
Gunnar et al. (2009) conducted a very interesting study about abandonment using cortisol levels to show the effects of a child’s foster care, orphanage care, and adoption experience on the severity of ELS. The children of the study were adopted from European countries into US homes. The assumption was that children who were adopted while still very young after a short stay in foster care, only experience moderate ELS, and therefore would show close to normal cortisol activity. The hypothesis for severe ELS was that these children spent more time in foster care and orphanages and therefore would show a greatly diminished cortisol activity. The baseline group was made up of children who lived continuously with their birth parents in US homes of middle to upper income families. The results of this study were actually shocking. The children who had been in foster/orphanage care the longest showed cortisol levels equal to the children who lived steadily with their birth parents. Surprisingly, the children who had spent the least amount of time in foster care had the most diminished cortisol levels. This study suggests that in the event of abandonment, the younger the child the more traumatic the event is for that child’s psychosocial development and the impact is lasting into at least until age 10 to 12.
Gunnar, M.R., Frenn, K., Wewerka, S. S. and Van Ryzin, M. J. (2009). Moderate versus severe early life stress: Associations with stress reactivity and regulation in 10-12 year old children. Psychoneuroendocrinology 34 (1), 62-75.
Children can experience abandonment as the result of any number of events. For example, the loss of life of a parent or caregiver can occur after an environmental disaster like an earthquake, a traumatic accident like a car accident, or after a battle with an incurable disease. Abandonment may occur as the result of a divorce, a parent with substance abuse issues, or long term absences due to military service. Some may say that such long term temporary absences are not abandonment, but to young children, the absence of a person who was once a stable presence in their life can be an early life stress (ELS) that has lasting effects (Gunnar et al., 2009).
Growing up I had 2 friends who experienced abandonment as a result of divorce. One friend was 6-years-old when his mother moved out of the family’s home. It did not seem the affect him much immediately. By about age 10 his father also moved out of the home, leaving him with his adult sister and brother. My friend became withdrawn and argumentative over the course of that summer. I can remember my mother speaking with me about how my friend was feeling. Another friend had a similar situation in which his father left the family when he was 2-years-old and his brother was 4. They were very busy boys who got into a lot of mischief. At ages 11 and 13 they boys were sent to live with their father who that only saw sporadically over the years. They ran away several times (to their maternal grandmother’s home). As a teenager, I watched my friend keep himself socially distant. At one point he chose to live as a homeless person because he felt he could not trust the adults in his life. Both of my friends have grown up to be great men despite the rough beginning. They have used their experience to shape the types of fathers they are today. They both very active participants in their children’s lives every day.
Gunnar et al. (2009) conducted a very interesting study about abandonment using cortisol levels to show the effects of a child’s foster care, orphanage care, and adoption experience on the severity of ELS. The children of the study were adopted from European countries into US homes. The assumption was that children who were adopted while still very young after a short stay in foster care, only experience moderate ELS, and therefore would show close to normal cortisol activity. The hypothesis for severe ELS was that these children spent more time in foster care and orphanages and therefore would show a greatly diminished cortisol activity. The baseline group was made up of children who lived continuously with their birth parents in US homes of middle to upper income families. The results of this study were actually shocking. The children who had been in foster/orphanage care the longest showed cortisol levels equal to the children who lived steadily with their birth parents. Surprisingly, the children who had spent the least amount of time in foster care had the most diminished cortisol levels. This study suggests that in the event of abandonment, the younger the child the more traumatic the event is for that child’s psychosocial development and the impact is lasting into at least until age 10 to 12.
Gunnar, M.R., Frenn, K., Wewerka, S. S. and Van Ryzin, M. J. (2009). Moderate versus severe early life stress: Associations with stress reactivity and regulation in 10-12 year old children. Psychoneuroendocrinology 34 (1), 62-75.