Do you believe periods of separation of child-parent/caregiver permanently damages the child? (child care, appropriate)
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I don't see where you made the distinction. You specified parents putting their needs/desires ahead of the parent-child bond. If you didn't mean to infer that any separation is harmful I apologize, but I didn't get it.
I really doubt parents leaving young children with strangers is much of an issue, except for those who don't excel at any area of parenting to begin with.
The conversation begins with the other thread this one was split from. That OP asked if any harm could come from leaving her baby with a set of grandparents who live in another country. The distinction I initially made was about primary caregivers, who can be anyone really, just as long as the baby is bonded with them (grandparents, relatives, nannies, etc).
A part of my argument was that the baby might not be a stranger to those grandparents, but the grandparents would be strangers to the baby since they don't spend time with the baby on a consistent basis.
Huh, what is your expertise? I didn't realize you were expert in the field of child psych/similar. How do you know that separations like in the original OPs case would not stress a baby?
I mean I have expertise in the area of science - in the area of reading and interpreting scientific studies and papers - and in biology and a couple of aspects of psychology. I am not a specific child psychologist but a lot of my training does very much touch on the areas being discussed here - and much of my skills and training do very much allow me to understand and evaluate any studies and papers you might get around to presenting on the topic. In fact the user who first asked me to join this forum did so because of our shared knowledge and study of Epedimiology.
Your last sentence is something of a dodge I am afraid. The claim that such periods of seperation DO cause such damage is the one being evaluated. There is no onus on anyone evaluating such a claim to evidence the OPPOSITE claim. In sceince we do not engage in studies to evidence a LACK of effect of something. Instead we engage in studies trying to ascertain the EFFECT of something and we either find one - or we find none. In this situation - you are not showing one. We do not prove negatives in these situations - we evaluate positives and either find them - or fail to.
There is no onus on me to show that periods of abscence are NOT damaging. The onus is on the person claiming they ARE damaging to evidence this claim.
The question very clearly in the title of your OP for example is " Do you believe periods of separation of child-parent/caregiver permanently damages the child?"
And my answer is "No - I have not seen a single reason to think this is true".
I don't see why you are answering the question in the title of this thread in response to me when you know I did not ask it. This is the kind of thing that I was talking about earlier IRT finding communication with you difficult.
I'm not sure what you mean by expertise in the area of science of reading and interpreting scientific papers and studies. The sciences are broad and expertise in one area doesn't lend to expertise in another. So, it does matter if you're an expert in the field. Your years of experience are going to guide you when consulting parents.
With that said, I did not read that initial response post of yours, so perhaps it was enlightening.
I'm not sure what you mean by in science we don't study the lack of effect of something - as it relates to determining whether an event will stress a baby or not. Perhaps the wording was just poor on my part.
The only thing I have to go on at this point is an instinct that leaving a child with relative strangers would be harmful. I found experts in the field of medince and child psych who asserted as much. Research in this area seems to be scarce.
eta: At the very least why would you not think separation anxiety, which is supposed to be a normal part of development, would not play into stressing a baby separated from primary caregivers, and left with relative strangers, for an extended period of time?
I don't see why you are answering the question in the title of this thread in response to me when you know I did not ask it. This is the kind of thing that I was talking about earlier IRT finding communication with you difficult.
I'm not sure what you mean by expertise in the area of science of reading and interpreting scientific papers and studies. The sciences are broad and expertise in one area doesn't lend to expertise in another. So, it does matter if you're an expert in the field. Your years of experience are going to guide you when consulting parents.
With that said, I did not read that initial response post of yours, so perhaps it was enlightening.
I'm not sure what you mean by in science we don't study the lack of effect of something - as it relates to determining whether an event will stress a baby or not. Perhaps the wording was just poor on my part.
The only thing I have to go on at this point is an instinct that leaving a child with relative strangers would be harmful. I found experts in the field of medince and child psych who asserted as much. Research in this area seems to be scarce.
eta: At the very least why would you not think separation anxiety, which is supposed to be a normal part of development, would not play into stressing a baby separated from primary caregivers, and left with relative strangers, for an extended period of time?
Expertise in reading and interpreting scientific papers and studies is a skill in itself and is not necessarily limited to a particular field of study. Someone trained in epidemiology will most certainly be able to read and interpret studies in the field of child psychology. Statistics are statistics, research methods are research methods.
Expertise in reading and interpreting scientific papers and studies is a skill in itself and is not necessarily limited to a particular field of study. Someone trained in epidemiology will most certainly be able to read and interpret studies in the field of child psychology. Statistics are statistics, research methods are research methods.
I do understand that the behavioral sciences rely heavily upon an array of statistics in order to glean useful information out of data and it is an important skill to read, understand, and interpret that data. I give props there. I just don't think it matters to the goal here, which is to determine whether or not a baby can be stressed under said conditions. To be able to say Yes or No, to the purpose of guiding parents, there has to be some good reason and to me that reason is expertise in this field.
I don't see why you are answering the question in the title of this thread in response to me when you know I did not ask it.
This thread is split off another thread where you very clearly DID make the claim that periods of abscence cause damage of these sorts. The claim is yours and I am doing nothing more than pointing out to you the claim is baseless. And the basis you attempted to offer for it were A) A blog opinion piece and then B) a research paper than in _no way_ actually supports your claim at all.
So if you did not "see" why I am addressing the question - hopefully you do now.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
The sciences are broad and expertise in one area doesn't lend to expertise in another.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does not. Certainly knowledge and experience in psycholgy and in reading and interpreting research papers speak DIRECTLY to this subject. .
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
I did not read that initial response post of yours
That certainly would explain a lot. You are complaining that communicating with me is difficult. But then you are admitting to not even reading some of my responses? For shame! Of course communication between two people is going to be difficult if one party is simply whole sale ignoring random sections of the other!
So if there is a failing in communication with me - it would appear the blame for that lies with you not me.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
I'm not sure what you mean by in science we don't study the lack of effect of something
Take medicine for example. When we research a new medicine we do not engage in studies looking for NO effects. We engage in studies seeking an effect. We then either find one - or find none. If the latter then we declare the drug does nothing. We do not engage in research attempting specifically to show NO effect. We attempt to show an affect and fail.
So there would be no onus on me to do or provide research to show that periods of abscence cause NO harm. The onus is on the people claiming it DOES cause harm to evidence that - or fail to evidence that. So if we are going to claim abscence of this sort causes damage we need to support THAT claim - not evidence the negative of it.
Remember the claim here is not just that it causes stress in the time period of the abscence but it causes "permanent damage".
Yes. We were forced by circumstances of foreign service to put our son into a boarding school for three years. Our relationship was permanently damaged. 30 years later he is still distant and cool toward us. He felt abandoned and un-loved.
I think by periods of abscence we were originally talking about a weeks holiday here and there. A three year abscence is of going to have effects on any relationship. That is no short spell of time.
The question in the OP title however is whether it will cause permanent damage to the child. Not whether it causes permanent damage to any given relationship. Again three years of such abscence is going to affect any relationship. The question here is about the damage to the child itself however.
Plus this is a single anecdote. Be wary of extrapolating too much off the back of it.
This thread is split off another thread where you very clearly DID make the claim that periods of abscence cause damage of these sorts. The claim is yours and I am doing nothing more than pointing out to you the claim is baseless. And the basis you attempted to offer for it were A) A blog opinion piece and then B) a research paper than in _no way_ actually supports your claim at all.
A relationship can be damaged. An object can be damaged. I think the only time it's said that a person is damaged is when it's intended to insult. It's up there with referring to parents as breeders. It's using the term incorrectly for the purpose of insulting. Damaged is loaded and it will peeve people. I don't think it's appropriate to use in the context of this conversation. So, no, I did not make those claims.
I did not link a blog. It was a child's advocacy site and you called it a blog. That doesn't make it so. This site says the exact same thing. While you might not find value in it, it's still not a blog.
Finally, perhaps the research paper doesn't fit well with my claims, but there is little research to go on. So far, the best I can find is "in my professional opinon".
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So if you did not "see" why I am addressing the question - hopefully you do now.
No, I do not. I reject the use of the term damaged referring to children. Consequeces, stress, suffering, anxiety are terms that you can assign to my claims, but not damaged.
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Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does not. Certainly knowledge and experience in psycholgy and in reading and interpreting research papers speak DIRECTLY to this subject.
And what experience is that, exactly? I'm still waiting for you to share why you think your opinion on the topic should trump professionals in the field who you have reduced to bloggers. To be clear, I am not saying that you are unable to read a research paper. I'm trying to tease out why you believe your opinion on this topic is based on expertise.
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That certainly would explain a lot. You are complaining that communicating with me is difficult. But then you are admitting to not even reading some of my responses? For shame!
I'm often on my phone (not now), which is why I do not multi-quote and respond in depth. You're not a concise and to the point writer. Sorry (I know that's rude on my part. I should try to read all of it). If I have several people responding I usually look at the first points and move on to the next. Otherwise, it becomes unmanageable for me.
But, I more so meant disagreement about terms. You don't understand why damaged is not acceptable to assign to me. In the other thread you didn't understand what I meant be friendly. It's been difficult.
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Take medicine for example. When we research a new medicine we do not engage in studies looking for NO effects. We engage in studies seeking an effect. We then either find one - or find none. If the latter then we declare the drug does nothing. We do not engage in research attempting specifically to show NO effect. We attempt to show an affect and fail.
I'nm not so sure about that when it comes pharm research at least. It's not about proving a negative (i.e., there is no god), but we do engage in research seeking no effects, or better said no activity. Compounds should have activity on therapeutic targets, but ideally no activity elsewhere in the body (hence all our issues with tox). So, we do engage in experiments that aim to show no activity and we can do this because we can tightly control conditions and include known references.
For example, we do not want to see hERG activity in any molecule (potentially causes heart failure). Compounds with certain characteristics tend to induce hERG activity. I have seen series of substructures developed for the purpose of modulating pKa so that a molecule is not ionized at physiological pH, which will ideally reduce or eliminate activity in this space.
Then, we can conduct experiments and hopefully show no activity otherwise the molecule will fail in it's tracks no matter how active on a ther. target.
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So there would be no onus on me to do or provide research to show that periods of abscence cause NO harm. The onus is on the people claiming it DOES cause harm to evidence that - or fail to evidence that. So if we are going to claim abscence of this sort causes damage we need to support THAT claim - not evidence the negative of it.
Remember the claim here is not just that it causes stress in the time period of the abscence but it causes "permanent damage".
Normally, I would agree but now that you have tied pharma to this discussion I don't know. The FDA requires that we indeed show that drugs cause no harm or at least no harm that we are aware of.
I think armed with the knowledge of separation anxiety is a part of normal development, which I don't believe you have addressed yet, there is reason to pause and consider possible consequences children may suffer from extended separation from primary caregivers when left with relative strangers. eta: I think the advice to err on the side of caution is sound at the very least. You have presented no reason to dimiss this advice from those working in the fields of medicine, child psych, and education.
As far as a permanent affect goes, well, everything that happens during development (good and bad) has a permanent affect.
I do understand that the behavioral sciences rely heavily upon an array of statistics in order to glean useful information out of data and it is an important skill to read, understand, and interpret that data. I give props there. I just don't think it matters to the goal here, which is to determine whether or not a baby can be stressed under said conditions. To be able to say Yes or No, to the purpose of guiding parents, there has to be some good reason and to me that reason is expertise in this field.
Well then I'll answer the question definitively for you:
No.
And the good reason:
My mother, who is an expert in the field (having been a mother, AND a kindergarten teacher, for 53 years and 32 years respectively), says so.
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