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How does good communication benefit children in early childhood
How does good communication benefit children in early childhood
The importance of communication to young children
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Imprisoned Mothers: Should Part of the Punishment Eliminate Communication with the Children?
“When my mother was sentenced, I felt I was sentenced. She was sentenced to prison, away from her kids and family. I was sentenced as a child-to be without my mother.” This quotation is part of a story of a young woman’s struggle with her mother being in prison. Separation from children is an issue that many female prisoners face. However, it’s not just the mothers who will suffer; we must also consider the children of these women. The children are often left to deal with many emotions ranging from anxiety to feelings of abandonment. If part of the sentence is no communication with the children, who is really being punished, the mother or the child?
Mothers in prison, with obvious limitations and restrictions, can still have a positive effect on their children. This can only happen if the lines of communication are able to be maintained. A child needs contact with the mother to keep their bond strong. When communication is able to be maintained, families can benefit by helping incarcerated mothers and their children cope with separation, providing incentives for the mothers to become better parents, and can make the transition into the family and society easier upon release.
One of the greatest stressors of women in prison is being apart from their children, Women inmates are more likely than fathers who are in prison to worry about the child’s living arrangements while they are serving their time. Women are usually the primary caregivers to their children before they enter the system, making the strain of separation difficult. Being able to communicate with each other, the mother and child are able to learn how to cope while b...
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...utside world is made easier. Some children’s lives have improved when they no longer communicate with the mother while incarcerated. However, we should review each case and keep the child’s best interest in mind.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Impact of of parental incarceration. (2003). Children of Prisoners Library(CPL 301).
Adalist-Estrin, A. (N.D.). Why maintain relationships? Children of Prisoners Library(CPL 102).
Banks, C. (2003). Women in prison: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
Bernstein, N. (2005). All alone in the world: children of the incarcerated. New York, New York, USA: The New Press.
Block, K. J. (1998). Girl scouts beyond bars: facilitating parent-child contact in correctional settings. Child Welfare, 77(5).
Hariston, C. (1998). Family ties during imprisonment:do they influence future criminal activity? Federal Probation, 52.
“The Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison”, written by Amanda Coyne depicts the struggles of parents and family members with the emotional trauma children go through due to the absence of their loved one. The story tugs the heart strings of readers with its descriptive account of Mother’s Day in a minimum security federal prison. Coyne describes the human emotions and truly gives an accurate account of what being in a visitation room is like. “The Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison” makes the reader question the criminal justice system and convinces him or her to adjust their way of thinking towards the definition of criminalization through the logos, pathos, and ethos demonstrated throughout the text.
This article dives deeper into the issue of black incarcerated women by going one step deeper and examining another dynamic of this issue, which is black incarcerated mothers specifically. I appreciate this article because it recognizes that this corrupt and unjust system is also the result of heteropatriarchy, that insists women be dependent on men, and punishes those who defy this standard. It is important to also recognize that traditional notions of family are invoked in these ideals and punishments, constructed by Eurocentric patriarchy. Although I will only briefly discuss how foster systems are connected with this issue because this is nevertheless an important dynamic to identify, I will mostly focus on the mothers themselves and how they are affected by the maintenance of black incarcerated
Mauer, Marc. 1999. The Race to Incarcerate. New York: The New Press National Research Council. 1993.
Santos, Michael G. Inside: Life Behind Bars in America. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2006. Print.
Hairston, C., & Lockett, P. (1987). Parents in Prison: New Directions for Social Services. Social Work , 162-164.
While most expectant mothers are planning for baby showers, shopping for maternity clothes and preparing the baby’s nursery, the incarcerated mother-to-be has to remain in a constant state of alertness and preparedness for situations that can put her and her unborn baby at risk, in an environment that is both intimidating and routinely violent. (Hutchinson et. al., 2008)
Studies show parental incarceration can be more traumatic to students than even a parent's death or divorce, and the damage it can cause to students' education, health, and social relationships puts them at higher risk of one day going to prison themselves.(Sparks,
Easterling and Johnson. (2012). Understanding Unique Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Challenges, Progress, and Recommendations. Journal of Marriage and Family, 342-356.
Vacca, James. (2008). Children of Incarcerated Parents: The invisible students in our schools—what can our schools do to help them? Relational Child & Youth Care Practice, 21 (1). 49-56.
In addition to improving chances of successful reentry, maintaining contact with family during incarceration has been shown to significantly reduce chances of recidivism. The separation caused by incarceration as well as the barriers to sustaining meaningful contact while incarcerated have been shown to impede reentry and create profound challenges to family stability. Parental incarceration increases the risk of children living in poverty or experiencing household instability, independent of any other factors present in a young person’s life. The impacts of incarceration on economic stability, health, education, and well-being also disproportionately affect young people who live in communities devastated by decades of unjust criminal justice policies that have had strong intergenerational impacts. Parental incarceration often displaces children, leaving other family or community members as the primary support system for these children, or pushing children into foster care or unstable
A vast majority of women who is incarcerated in U.S. prison systems are mothers of young children. Women inmates, who are in their late stages of pregnancy, will more than likely give birth while incarcerated behind bars (Hanser & Gomila, 2015). Not all penal institutions in the U.S. are equipped with adequate facilities, or prison nursery programs to accommodate incarcerated mothers and their infant. An infant’s bonding time with his or her mother is very critical during the first few months; however, not all prison facilities will allow incarcerated mothers the opportunity to bond with their child due to prison policies (Hanser & Gomila, 2015). Mothers in prison are incarcerated in remote areas where it is very difficult for their children to visit them. This case study will explore the issue of motherhood in prison, which is also
The challenges of children who grow up with parents whom were incarcerated at some point in their childhood can have a major effect on their life. The incarceration of parents can at times begin to affect the child even at birth. Now with prison nurseries the impregnated mother can keep her baby during her time in jail. With the loss of their parent the child can begin to develop behavioral problems with being obedient, temper tantrums, and the loss of simple social skills. Never learning to live in a society they are deprived of a normal social life. “The enormous increase incarceration led to a parallel, but far less documented, increase in the proportion of children who grew up with a parent incarcerated during their childhood” (Johnson 2007). This means the consequences of the children of the incarcerated parents receive no attention from the media, or academic research. The academic research done in this paper is to strengthen the research already worked by many other people. The impact of the parent’s incarceration on these children can at times be both positive and negative. The incarceration of a parent can be the upshot to the change of child’s everyday life, behavioral problems, and depriving them a normal social life.
When having a parent locked up their school life can change drastically. Just having a parent in prison gives a child a higher chance than others in their school to go to jail unlike they ordinarily would with law obeying parents. The child could have beautiful grades and never broken a rule, but still be affected. Peers in schools may not be looked at the same way again or be labelled and others will try to avoid them; just because they talked about their visits. This could lead to a drastic downfall of grades, higher suspensions, and lead to a life of
her it could create serious problems for the child. Many children who have mothers in prison are shuffled from one foster home to another. Because of this the child is not able to have the secure attachment that they need from an early age. As they grow older without these attachments it becomes harder to build these bonds with others.
2nd ed. of the book. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014]. The Prison Reform Trust.