Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools

Navigation

You are here: Home / News / Smith-Bynum interviewed for child separation feature

Smith-Bynum interviewed for child separation feature

In an article in The Cut, "The Psychological Effects of being Separated from your Child," Cari Romm reports on the human cost of a policy of family separation, drawing on insights from Faculty Associate Mia Smith-Bynum. "[W]hen a separation happens when it’s not supposed to - unexpectedly, non-consensually, because of circumstances beyond the parent’s control," she writes, "it becomes what human development experts call an 'off-time life event,' and it can turn a parent’s identity upside-down. Dr. Bynum commented, “It goes against the normal expectations a parent might have over the course of that young person’s life."

Parents separated from their children with no recourse can lead to ambiguous loss: “You know your kid is out there, but you don’t know if you’ll be able to parent and take care of your kid again,” Dr. Bynum said.

See the complete article in The Cut