“They [society] always forget about the children.”
Rebecca Deierling
(Principal for Adult Services, ND Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation )
He sits alone in the bedroom with the light off, even though dusk is deepening into night. His growling stomach alerts him to the fact that it is time to eat something. He knows that no one will call his name to come to the table for dinner. He overhears conversations at school that other people… families… sometimes sit down together around a table and eat the same foods and talk about common things. They have real conversations about how school is going, what happened during the day. Stuff like that. Sometimes it’s been like that at foster homes, but he can’t remember ever doing it with his own family. He wonders what that would be like.
The cacophony of emotions that he daily resists indulging sweep over him like a tide. He hates this place. His cousin or aunt or family friend (he isn’t sure their connection to his life) that he now lives with offered to take him from the most recent foster home so that he could be with “family.” Some family. Most of the time there is no one here. He has to find his own food and there is precious little of it. Most of whatever money there is around here goes for booze or drugs. Lunch five days a week is the one redeeming thing about school.
This place almost makes him miss his last fosters. This was his fourth move in seven weeks and there have been so many moves before that he can’t keep count. Just when he starts to (sort of) get used to a place, something happens, and he’s packing his three smelly t-shirts and one pair of jeans into a plastic grocery bag and being driven to a new place. Sometimes fosters are nice enough, but they aren’t his parents. He doesn’t even try to connect with them anymore. He used to believe that if he was good enough or nice enough or helpful enough, his current caregivers would keep him. Maybe even adopt him. But he gave up that dream years ago. Besides, it isn’t the same as being with his dad. Or his mom. Yeah, they have their problems, but he loves them anyway. He can’t help it.
He wishes for the hundredth time that his grandmother could take him, but she isn’t much better. She has her own issues and his cousins and aunts and uncles that rotate in and out of her tiny house mean that she has no space for him. At least here he has a room with a bed and a door. He has to share the room with some kid younger than himself, which is annoying, but it could be worse. When his dad was around, they mostly crashed with friends or relatives, which meant he usually had no bed to sleep in or door to shut. Just a blanket on the floor and lots of noisy adults staying up late. And his teachers wonder why I can’t stay awake in school.
His dad has been in the state penitentiary for three years now. Three years feels like a lifetime. The last time he saw his dad, he was in the fourth grade. Now he’s in middle school, and he knows that he looks totally different. He’s not a kid anymore. Maybe his dad wouldn’t even recognize him. The last time he saw his dad the door was being kicked in and police in bulletproof vests were swarming the house and pinning his dad to the floor. Everybody was yelling; his dad, the police, everybody. He was so scared he couldn’t breathe. A social worker was there and tried to say nice things and be reassuring, but he saw that same terrible scene every night when he closed his eyes. The look in his dad’s eyes of fear, anger, and embarrassment as they led him away in handcuffs. He had tried to run after his dad that night, but the social worker held him back and to his embarrassment he had burst into tears. Big, racking sobs that he couldn’t stop. His chest hurt even now just thinking about it.
He misses his dad so much!
He wants to visit his dad in prison. He knows it is possible. His social worker told him so. But his dad won’t see him. His social worker said it wasn’t because his dad didn’t want to see him. It was the other way around. His dad doesn’t want his son to see him in prison, wearing a number and being ordered around. He’s ashamed or something. ‘I don’t care about any of that! I just want to talk to you, dad, in person. Not on the phone. Not in a letter. One-on-one. Like the old days.’
He knows he’s messing up his own life. School is terrible. He is embarrassed to tell the few friends he has that his dad is a convicted felon, so he lies all the time. About almost everything. It is exhausting to stay ahead of the lies. Sometimes he messes up his stories and has to think fast. He can’t invite anyone over, not to this place, so he never gets invited to anyone’s house. It gets lonely. Real lonely.
His grades are in the toilet too. A couple of D’s and the rest F’s. He doesn’t care anymore. All the moving around keeps him distracted and stressed out. He can’t focus on his classes or his homework. Sometimes his fosters would ask about it, but he’d lie and say he had finished his homework. He hasn’t stayed in one place long enough to have anyone check on his grades or help him get caught up. He knows he isn’t helping his own cause. He’s always moody and keeps to himself. It’s easier that way. Better to not have warm feelings about anyone you are just going to leave anyway.
He hangs his head and feels the warning burn behind his eyes of tears that want to trickle down his tired face, and soak into his dirty shirt. ‘Dad, I need you!’
This fictional story is a compilation of interviews I conducted with social workers, teachers, and research related to children of incarcerated parents. While the characters are fictitious, this child exists among us. Here are some chilling realities about children who have one or both incarcerated parents.
Five million children (1 in 14) in the U.S. have had at least one incarcerated parent. Studies reveal that, for several reasons, it is difficult to maintain parent-child relationships during incarceration. Some might believe that it is in the best interest of the child to avoid visiting a parent in prison, but research consistently reveals the opposite. It is good for the parent AND the child to maintain a relationship during the incarceration. Children are wired to be attached to their parents. When that attachment is harmed, known as attachment insecurity, it can lead to devasting long-term effects such as externalizing behaviors, depression, social misfunction, grade retention, chronic physical health issues, such as asthma, stigma, and poor mental and physical health into adulthood.
Insecure attachment is one of the worst predictors for success throughout a lifetime. When children are passed around from caregiver to caregiver, however well-meaning the intention, trauma is increased for that child. Research has shown that it literally affects brain architecture and can cause developmental delays that may require therapy. The social stigma of having an incarcerated parent is another trauma for children. The negative effects of experiencing this stigma can last well into their adult years.
This is where frequent visitations between a parent and their child can have positive effects. However, the numbers are not encouraging. Only fifty percent of incarcerated parents are ever visited by their child(ren). There are several reasons for this that may include a prohibitive distance from the caregiver’s home, lack of child-friendly visitation areas within the prison facility, policies within the prison about visitation, or the incarcerated parent or the caregiver refuses visitations.
It would be erroneous to paint a visit to a prison as anything but a potentially emotional experience for all involved, but research supports it as mostly positive, if the family unit has counseling support. Recidivism rates tend to be lower for parents who experience child visitations during incarceration.
It is good for the children as well. Predictive factors for successful family relationships upon release from prison include more frequent family visit along with parenting classes.
Much of the preceding information came from a literature review compiled by the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Children of Incarcerated Parents (Smith, 2018). Recommendations from the report for alleviating some of the effects of separation include reducing the trauma and stigma of having an incarcerated parent, improving communication between the parent and child(ren), and making visits to the prison more child friendly.
During the long night of Covid, Project Armchair longed for a way to continue to serve the children of our community while unable to read in-person with them. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sub-committee, Children of Incarcerated Parents (COIP), reached out to us and asked if we could help them come up with ways to increase visitation rates with literacy as its core component. Working with DOCR staff and a talented inmate, we created a visually beautiful cozy corner in what had previously been a sterile and unwelcoming space within the state penitentiary. The results were so spectacular that, Missouri River Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison requested help to accomplish the same results in their visitation room.
With plans now firmly in place, the inmate artists are creating a unified theme for a bright and welcoming mural within MRCC, along with a two-person bench conducive to reading side-by-side, and a low bookshelf. Missouri River Correctional Center is considering other ways as well to make visitations between incarcerated fathers and their children less intimidating and more welcoming. Project Armchair applauds these efforts.
This is where you can participate. Books to keep the shelves stocked need to be donated specifically for that purpose. In the state penitentiary, for security reasons, books read with children in the visitation room need to stay there. For a visiting child to keep and take home the book they just read with their father; duplicate books will be kept outside of the secure area. A team of literacy experts have compiled a list of high-quality, high-engagement book titles for your convenience. It would be wonderful if the supportive donors of Project Armchair would donate books from this vetted list. Donating two books of the same title would allow children with a father in the state penitentiary to keep a copy of the book they just read with their dad. Please visit our website click here to find a list of suggested titles under the “get involved” tab. If you prefer to donate money, our website is linked to Paypal. We’d be happy to pick out the books for you!
A side note: the rate of illiteracy among incarcerated individuals is high. Seventy percent of incarcerated inmates cannot read above a fourth-grade level. When choosing book titles to donate, colorful picture books (books that tell the story as much through illustrations as text) are ideal for preserving the dignity of the parent. These books are generally geared for kindergarten through second grade.
References
Smith, N. (2018). Children of incarcerated parents outline. North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Murphey, D. & Cooper, M. (2015). Parents behind bars: What happens to their children? Child Trends. Retrieved from: https://www.childtrends.org/publications/parents-behind-bars-what-happens-to-their-children
https://governorsfoundation.org/gelf-articles/early-literacy-connection-to-incarceration/
