podcast part 4

Parental incarceration and its impact on children's mental and well-being is an under-discussed topic. Over 2.7 million children in the US have an incarcerated parent, which affects their adjustment, school performance, and likelihood of getting arrested. However, every child's story is unique, and societal stigma and lack of support add to their burden. The relationship between the child and the incarcerated parent can weaken due to economic stress and emotional difficulties. But in some cases, it may strengthen the relationship with the non-incarcerated parent. Limited access to incarcerated parents due to distance or personal reasons further isolates the child. The child's well-being is negatively affected, leading to depression, anxiety, and other issues. It is important for educators and adults to understand and support these children by discussing the research and creating safe spaces for them. The New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents provides guidelines on ho Welcome to today's podcast. Today we're going to be talking about parental incarceration. Specifically, we are going to be talking about parental incarceration and the impact it has on children's mental and well-being. Parental incarceration is really an under-discussed topic. Over 2.7 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent. That is a lot of children, meaning that anyone working with children probably is working with a child that has a parent incarcerated. Because of how many people this affects, it is really important for us to look at the implications of what having an incarcerated parent means. There is some really interesting research out there about parental incarceration and the risks and effects it has on children that are experiencing it. Lauren, Erin, and Danielle Dallaire in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence discuss how exposure to parental incarceration is associated with higher rates of maladjustment in children. Children of incarcerated parents are more likely than their peers to drop out of school and to be arrested. We see, based on this evidence, that parental incarceration, a child experiencing that, is predisposed to all these different elements and just predisposed to maybe not doing as well as their peers. How as adults can we help understand and help the children when we don't know too much about it ourselves, emphasizing how it's really, really important to look at this research and to discuss parental incarceration and its effects. It's also important to note that the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents says, there is no single story of a child whose parent is incarcerated. Each story is unique and experiences are varied. What is shared among these children is the heavy burden of societal stigma and judgment and lack of support and empathy that children experiencing other types of loss receive. It's important to note that this research is important, but obviously it can't speak for every single child who has an incarcerated parent. As we continue to read, we see that Joseph Murray discusses antisocial behavior child outcomes after parental incarceration among minor children with parents in U.S. state prisons in 2004, 22% were aged 4 years or younger, 30% were 5 to 9 years, and 32% were 10 to 14 years, and 16% were 15 to 17 years. So that shows us that every single child that has an incarcerated parent is a child that has an incarcerated parent. While maybe they can relate to each other, it's not a one-size-fits-all situation and it's not like one story speaks for all of them. So while there is a lot of research that suggests that a child who has an incarcerated parent is destined for negative outcomes, a lot of children change that narrative. So it's really important to note that the research we're going to continue to discuss throughout this podcast is not indicative for each child. Every single child who has an incarcerated parent all has a different story. It's really interesting because throughout doing the research for this podcast, this is not the first time we've heard about a lot of this information. So the information suggests that there are so many children with parents that are incarcerated, but it also suggests on the same hand that they're not getting the attention and the support that they need to thrive most of the time. There are so many different reasons as to why somebody might be incarcerated and how it affects the family. We never know if it's domestic abuse, if it had something to do with the child, if the child was completely unrelated to the incarceration, and how that child's emotions towards the situation shape the outcome. Does the child feel happy? Does the child feel almost spiteful? Does the child feel angry? Does the child feel sad? Does the child like their current situation better? Do they like it less? What's the relationship with the other parent? These are all really important things that affect what will happen to the child growing up. Also, does the child still have a relationship with this parent or parents? That's a really important thing to discuss and to think about. Kearney Kaye in Parental Incarceration and Parent-Youth Closeness in the Journal of Marriage and Family discusses how a family system's perspective, which highlights their interactions and interdependency between family members, suggests that parental incarceration is consequential for relationships between youth and their parents. We know that having parents around or having a support system in the family is really crucial and important to a child's well-being growing up. The first reason why a relationship might weaken between the parent that is still present and the child is that economic stress, going from a two-family income to one, is a big deal that may force other parents to have to take two jobs, three jobs even, and not be able to spend as much time with that child who really needs more support than ever. Additionally, sometimes having somebody in your life who is incarcerated comes with anxiety, depression, stress. That can make it hard to take care of a child and that can make it hard for a child to depend on somebody else. As Tierney also states, on the other hand, parental incarceration may strengthen relationships between youth and their non-incarcerated parents during adolescence. So, depending on the situation, it might actually be beneficial for the child and the other parent and this child may grow closer and having the incarcerated parent incarcerated might actually be a beneficial thing. Now, again, like we said before, it really differs between child to child and situation to situation and not every child has the same story. It's really also interesting to note that there are not so many prisons that have family centers in the U.S. Having the availability to see this incarcerated parent, if that's the choice the family makes, is really important. The prisonpolicy.org shares that in certain situations, two-thirds of parents in state prisons have never had a visit with their child. Some of the barriers are distance, which is 33% of children. Parents in prison can't have visitors, 7%. Family can't afford travel, it's 5%. And then personal reasons. Sometimes it's not the best choice for the child to visit the incarcerated parent and that's just a choice that is made throughout the family. So, we think about the opportunity to build a relationship with this incarcerated parent or to maintain one kind of disappears depending on the situation and depending on the prison and depending on where the person lives. Not only as a country are we punishing this incarcerated person, but we're punishing a child that has nothing to do with what that person may or may not have done. Right? So, this child is paying for a crime that just like has nothing to do with them. We see that saying of we are doing time on the outside. And it's so, it really speaks some truth because these children are really suffering and dealing with these consequences, being punished literally for something that they have no part of, could not control, could have even happened before they were born. So, it's really just not fair at the end of the day. In New York City, one in five students in public schools, in public high schools, as of 2021, have a parent who's incarcerated. All of these things are linked with higher depression, anxiety, trouble focusing, irritability, tobacco use, drug use, things that don't really benefit the child. It's very, very, very important as educators, as adults, as people moving into fields that are working with children, that we take the time to look at this research. We take the time to speak to these children, to speak to these parents and really, really understand what's going on and understand what we could do best to help. One of our big goals with this podcast is to really spread this information out on a wider scale and invoke some discussion about it. It's some of the first times we have had discussions about these things. So, I think it's really important to kind of ask you guys and get curious and ask the hard questions and really think about who's affected, how we can help, and what it really means for a child's mental and well-being to have a parent incarcerated in the United States. I think while we close up this podcast, I think it's really important to reference the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents, Creating Safe Spaces. This sheet really impacted us as a group and as a whole, and we just wanted to really make sure to add this to the end of the podcast. We want to be a role model and acceptance, evaluate how we think about this, be an active, nonjudgmental listener, talk about it, acknowledge that this is a hard thing. Using inclusive language, it's not really appropriate to say inmate, offender, convict, prisoner, criminal. We want to use words like incarcerated, nonjudgmental, something like that. Respect privacy. This is not information that we need to know about, but we want to know about it and it's their private, personal info. But as adults, we want to help the children. Signal it's a safe space. This is a safe space, and I think it's so important. If you are somebody who's looking for anything that has to do with children, to post that in a classroom, in a setting like that, could make a child feel so, so safe. Overall, I hope that throughout this podcast, you learned as much as we did about parental incarceration. It is a really interesting topic that is really, really important in the United States and it's just something that I feel like we can't know enough about. Overall, thank you for joining us today on today's podcast about parental incarceration and how it affects children's physical and mental well-being.