Moving Is Traumatic For Children: The Forgotten Victims Of Migration

[Daniel.Slack]

“If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” Jim Rohn

 

Duty and responsibility, this is the evidence of a responsible adult. Responsibility to your work, duty to your family. Most parents strive to become successful, to provide the best they can for their families. Within the parents heart is a constant struggle, it seems, between selfishness of self and the selflessness parenting.

 

In some instances, parents make choices that seem good for their family on a whole. A well provided career, with a home, medical care, and other benefits, one example of this is military service. To many parents this seems a good way to gain a purpose driven life.

 

In fact, as adults, changing station assignments seem welcome and exciting. The happiness and anticipation of new friends, new surroundings, and new experience seems exciting and wonderful to some.

But to a child, moving stirs up strong emotions.

 

If we, as adults consider how we felt when forced into a new school, a new environment, and a new situation as a child, we would remember that what we consider a “good experience” is actually a rather traumatic experience for a child.

 

Imagine you are a child, who has to move through no choice of your own, then add that it’s a move resulting from a traumatic experience like divorce or death, we begin to see these relocations under a different light. What we consider salvation, a new beginning, results into fear, anxiety, panic, and a myriad of other feelings to a child.

 

When a child has to move it is often completely out of their control. “Most of the stress is felt by those people (children) who didn’t make the decision to move,” said Dr. Frederick Medway, a child psychologist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, who studied the effects of mobility on families. There be feelings attached to any move, but children are forced to cope with the move, losing the familiarity, support, and long term friendships that are important in their early development

 

Many more issues of concern come to light if a child has to move because of reasons such as, a violent loss of a family member, placement in a foster home, destruction of their home due to a fire, flood, tornado or hurricane, terrorism, incarceration of a parent, or an accidental death of a parent, or divorce.

 

Anyone who has worked with children has seen the effects of such a move. Teachers have children come through their doors everyday, who are negatively affected by a move, socially, emotionally or academically. Research supports that moving has negative consequences on learning.

The National Network for Children (2003) reports that each year one out of every five American families moves, representing nineteen percent (19%) of the population. “Moving may be one of the most stress producing experiences a family faces,” suggests the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, (Facts for Families, 1999). In addition, Dr. Arlen Fulton, of Ohio State University (2002) also indicates that, “many child development experts see moving as one of the most disruptive events in a child’s life.”

 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in children can also be triggered by a traumatic move. A key component involved may indeed be a feeling of powerlessness, and an absence of a sense of safety. (Steele and Raider 2002). When families must move because of a traumatic situation, the adults often are ill equipped to respond to the child’s emotional needs. Oftentimes, parents underestimate their children’s feelings (Bruce, 2003). Leonard Jason, psychology professor at De Paul University, states, “Most parents are pretty insensitive. They don’t understand the child’s point of view.” Because the parents may be undergoing their own stress related to the move, many issues evolve; the child may feel powerless, alone, fearful, angry and afraid to ask for help, or share their feelings, for fear of worrying the adults in their lives even more. If they see their parents crying, arguing, or simply stressing over the basic inconveniences associated with moving, they may interpret their parent’s behavior as being their fault. This is especially true with younger children.

 

Facts for Families (1999) indicate that studies show that, “children who move frequently are more likely to have problems at school.” The Orlando Sentinel, reports that “Students who change schools often are more likely to fall behind in reading, because they miss lessons in the march from school to school.” They further indicate that, “As many as one in three students in Central Florida switches schools during the year,” according to the most recent data available. (January 8, 2003). Florida is not alone in statistics such as these. Greg Lindberg, who compiled the data involving schools states, “What does seem to be quite clear is that moving really negatively affects the attendance, which profoundly affects the test scores.”

 

Sometimes children who kill are children who had to move to a new school, or to a new state or neighborhood, resented it and lacked the social and coping skills to adapt and “fit in.” Children can experience, “fear, the pain of separation, and other anxieties like adults” (Fullton, 2002). The “new kid” syndrome can lead to bullying, ridicule, outcasting as well as physical abuse from other kids. For example, on March 5, 2001, Charles Andrew Williams, a 15 year old, shot and killed two students at his suburban high school in San Diego, California. Williams was said to have tried to “fit in” at the 1,900 pupils Santana High School after moving to California the previous year from Maryland. (Gun Violence in America, Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2002)

 

Awareness, sensitivity, insight and knowledge, along with programs, school policy (Newcomers Clubs e.g., teacher training, counseling interventions, etc.), school policies and supportive tools for schools and families, such as books, may be the preventative key in helping children; especially those who move due to a traumatic life event, or because of a family crisis. Perhaps interventions which focus on coping with changes will help young children learn the coping skills necessary to survive the associated pain and loss. Clinicians, school social workers, counselors, teachers and parents need to pay attention to the child who has moved and recognize the potential for this to be an opportunity for growth for the child but also a potential danger related to the negative responses to moving and being the “new kid.” Thinking that children are resilient and will “get over it” generally is not helpful in our attempts to see the world through a child’s eyes.

 

We need to realize that because our children are exposed to far too much too early in life they are seeing life as unsafe, overwhelming, and unstable. Therapists often fail to address the effects of moving when counseling children.

 

“The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.” Robert Southey