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Relationship to parents in adulthood with a background of out‐of‐home care in childhood
Author(s) -
Andersson Gunvor
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
child and family social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-2206
pISSN - 1356-7500
DOI - 10.1111/cfs.12454
Subject(s) - feeling , developmental psychology , psychology , longitudinal study , medicine , pediatrics , social psychology , pathology
The longitudinal study started with children aged up to 4 who had been taken into care because of unacceptable living conditions and deficient parental care. After their initial stay in a children's home, the 26 children in the research group went on to have diverse placement histories throughout their childhood (up to age 18). The children have been divided into 4 subgroups in accordance with the length of time they lived with 1 of their parents or with foster parents. Relationships were 1 of the themes in the primary study as well as in all 8 rounds of follow‐up. This article is based on the 2 most recent rounds when the children had reached the ages of 25 to 30 and 35 to 39. A few of the interviewees talked about a close relationship to 1 of their parents, some had occasional contact, and many more had no contact at all, felt abandoned, or had decided to keep their parent(s) at a distance, not least out of consideration for their own children. The interviews showed that their adult relationship to and/or feelings for parents were still problematic and negatively affected their own well‐being, even if their parent(s) had died.