Love, care, and support don’t just make us feel good, they’re fundamental to our growth and development. A common metaphor compares children to sponges and there’s a lot of truth there. But we can be more specific. Children soak up the behaviors, habits, and coping strategies of their primary caregivers.
So when the attentive care that children need isn’t there, important developments don’t occur or change in response to their care environment. That absence, whether physical or emotional, of a parent or caregiver can create what mental health professionals call child abandonment issues. Feeling abandoned is an experience that as many as 1 in 7 American children share each year. And those abandonment issues from childhood leave deep wounds on adolescents and adults that demand empathetic care.
But receiving care depends on spotting the problem. Sometimes, parents may not be aware their child feels abandoned but notice concerning behavioral changes. If these parents know the signs of abandonment issues in children, they can move to reassure that child of their love and attention. However, there are times when children need the devoted care of trained professionals.
Defining Childhood Abandonment Trauma
What is childhood abandonment trauma, exactly? One common misconception is that abandonment requires one or more parents to leave, or abandon, the child. While physical abandonment causes deep pain and trauma, it is not the only source of child abandonment issues. Children can suffer from emotional abandonment when they feel caregivers neglect their emotional needs.
Caregivers should recognize that this abandonment can be intentional, like when a parent leaves the household with no plans of returning, but also unintentional. Sometimes, caregivers may not be able to give a child all the attention and care they need, leading a child to feel abandoned.
On the more clinical side, psychologists look at the relationship between the attention and affection a child receives and what is required for normal child development. When the child is intentionally or unintentionally denied the love and attention normal child development requires, that child suffers from abandonment. Caregivers or educators may begin to spot signs of this abandonment long before a psychologist becomes involved.
If this abandonment goes undetected, it creates long-term health complications in the brain especially. When childhood abandonment trauma goes untreated, adverse brain development occurs. This negatively affects the person’s ability to regulate their emotions and behavior throughout their life. The trauma can also age the brain without undergoing natural maturation.
Signs of Abandonment Issues in a Child
Spotting the signs of abandonment issues is essential given how detrimental to health childhood abandonment trauma is and how painful the experience is for children. Indications that a child is struggling with abandonment issues appear in all aspects of the child’s life. Abandonment impacts their relationship to caregivers, peers, and themselves.
Relationship to Caregivers
If a child often struggles to cope with the news that a caregiver will be leaving, even for a short while, this might indicate separation anxiety. This could also manifest as an aversion to spending time alone, whether that’s playing or sleeping alone.
Another behavior indicative of a child struggling with abandonment issues is defiance or frequent tantrums. As the child soaks in the behavior they see around them, they may identify with the source of their abandonment, choosing to replicate it by pushing the caregiver away or testing their limits.
Relationship to Peers
Children suffering from abandonment may avoid social interaction altogether. Instead, they may prefer to spend time alone, thus avoiding the risk of being abandoned again. For these children, it’s easier and safer to retreat to oneself rather than face rejection again. Others may reach that point after they struggle to form friendships with peers, encountering distance rather than any connection.
Other children may overcome these obstacles and manage to make friends, but have a deep dread that they will abandon them as their parent(s) did. These children may be on a constant lookout for any signs that abandonment is imminent and seek constant reassurance that their friendships are intact.
Personal Issues
When a child has abandonment trauma, it impacts every aspect of their lives, including the relationship to oneself and one’s surroundings. As children with abandonment issues grow, they begin to internalize the abandonment. This can manifest as shame about themselves or guilt towards the fact that a parent abandoned them.
They can also find it challenging to sleep at night. As mentioned, spending the night alone can scare a child with abandonment trauma. Nightmares or dreams of being abandoned again may disrupt their sleep cycle once they do manage to fall asleep. Noticing repeated dreams is just one way caregivers can spot the signs of abandonment issues in children.
Childhood Abandonment Trauma in Adults
Of course, abandonment issues are not a phase. It is not something a child will grow out of as they develop. What’s more likely is that the child will learn how to hide their pain or find alternative methods for coping with it. These mechanisms become entrenched habits or worsen into more extreme behaviors. Some signs of childhood abandonment trauma in adults include:
- Dependency: Having been abandoned and never healing, an abandoned child can become an adult that depends on others for validation and approval. Believing the abandonment was their fault, they struggle to feel worthy of love and unable to direct love towards themselves. Instead, they rely on others to shape their self-image and worth.
- Fear of Commitment: The fear of abandonment that prevents a child from forming friendships remains into adulthood. This can create a fear of any kind of commitment, whether it be towards friends, partners, or family members.
- Unhealthy Coping Strategies: Abandonment is painful and without treatment, adults look to substances or behaviors to provide the care they need. This may take the form of alcohol or drugs but can also include risky behaviors that numb or distract from the underlying source of pain. This can lead to an escalation throughout the adult’s life, putting them at ever greater risk of harm.
Intervening early, preferably as soon as possible, can help a child with abandonment issues avoid the deleterious outcomes that accompany adulthood with untreated childhood abandonment trauma.
Support for Childhood Abandonment Issues
Children suffering from childhood abandonment trauma feel there’s love and support they are not receiving, so it’s essential that any treatment involves healing that perception. For a parent who’s inadvertently causing a child to feel physically or emotionally neglected, it’s important to avoid blaming the child or invalidating their feelings.
Instead, parents can take opportunities to communicate that the child is loved and valued. As clear and consistent of a routine as possible can soothe separation anxiety and provide stability for the child. And above all, creating an open line of communication—in a format the child is comfortable with—can help the child express their abandonment and allow the parent to reassure.
But not every child has a parent that is unintentionally causing their abandonment. Others might have parents who have physically abandoned them, or who do not believe their child should feel emotionally abandoned. Professional care can help in these situations.
How KID Inc. Addresses Child Abandonment Issues
Children and families in South Florida don’t need to struggle with childhood abandonment issues alone. Kids in Distress Inc. utilizes leading therapeutic modalities to identify and treat childhood abandonment trauma. We’ve also innovated internationally recognized programs like KID HomeBuilders to intervene in especially critical situations. Here are some of the ways KID Inc. tackles childhood abandonment issues:
- Play Therapy: Children naturally communicate through play and often prefer this method over others. Our professional staff utilizes play therapy to enable children to easily express their emotions in directions of their choosing. Children select the toys they want to play with and how they want to play with them, while one of our therapists monitors and questions choices, actions, and emotions that appear.
- KID HomeBuilders: When households are in imminent danger of having children removed due to abuse or neglect, our KID HomeBuilders can step in to strengthen and stabilize families. Through individual and family therapy, our team can help children cope and overcome their sense of abandonment and provide parents with the tools and knowledge they need to provide loving, supportive homes.
- KID Healthy Families: Our KID Healthy Families program follows the proven track record of the National Healthy Families Initiative. In this voluntary, at-home program, our KID counselors promote positive parent-child relationships and interactions that foster healthy childhood development.
- Kinship Support Services: When a family member or friend must step in to raise another’s child, it’s likely the child will feel abandoned by their parent. As these new caregivers step up to raise the child, they face numerous barriers. They may not have legal custody, financial support, or childcare. These can all compound the original abandonment issues. Through Kinship Support Services, KID Inc. helps these new families and children stabilize in their new situation.
Confronting and treating childhood abandonment trauma in our community is just one of the ways we support children in distress living in our community. You can support our work and these children through in-kind donations, volunteering, and monetary support. Together, we can imagine better outcomes, invest in proven solutions, and improve the lives of children in South Florida.