Teacher Bias Against Children of Inmates, A Legitimate Concern

A study of children with incarcerated parents suggests that teachers can be a powerful source of stigmatization. How would you help a child in this situation in psychotherapy?

Recently I sat down at a banquet table, and a man sitting across from me said, "I know you; you’re the doctor who taught me that children need love and praise." His comment, which I surmised was based on a lecture I had given months before, surprised me. Nonetheless, I was proud that the message had made in imprint on the mind of this stranger.

I thought of this incident when I read the paper referred to in this month’s question. The paper studies teachers and the way they react to elementary school students who have a parent in jail. The investigators, affiliated with the College of William & Mary and the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology, both in Williamsburg, reached their conclusions by conducting two studies. The first focused on the experiences of 30 teachers with children who had incarcerated parents. The second study, which involved 73 teachers, examined their expectations for competency of fictitious children who were new to class because their mothers had been incarcerated (J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 2010;31:281-90 [doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2010.04.001]). The findings devastated me because they showed that teachers make assumptions about their students’ academic potential based on one part of narrative.

Having an incarcerated parent is one of the 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, described by Dr. Vincent J. Felitti and his colleagues. It is important for all of us doctors, teachers, and so on, to be cognizant of the factors that traumatize children and to do what we can to help them deal with the trauma. The teachers in this study did the opposite. The parent’s incarceration was not a secret and, according to the article, the teachers saw the difficulty the child was having. "Regarding children’s emotional difficulties, several teachers mentioned that these children had a low threshold for frustration and would easily ‘fall apart’ or ‘fall to pieces,’ " the researchers wrote.

In times of internalizing behavior problems, teachers often mentioned that these children said they felt sick and made frequent trips to the nurse’s office but did not have noticeable physical symptoms. They also note children’s internalizing behavior, stating that many with incarcerated parents act out in the classroom and have trouble interacting with peers. When describing a female student who lives with her grandmother, one teacher said, "She had a really high incidence of behavior issues, mostly because she had a low tolerance for those who mouthed off to her, then she’d say and do whatever she felt."

These teachers could have taken the children aside and talked to them to help reduce their stress. But that did not happen. Instead, these teachers stigmatize and penalize these children by making assumptions about their academic capability and doing nothing to stabilize those who are clearly suffering. We all know the power of self-fulfilling prophesies, and this study is further proof that if the teacher decides a child is not going to do well – that child won’t do well! Elementary school children are highly malleable and need support, encouragement and, particularly, a teacher who can be a mentor, a guide, an inspiration.

Loss and Rage

Several years ago, I was told about a child, a 7-year-old in second grade, who would tell everyone that he wanted to go to jail. When he misbehaved, he would tell the adult, "Send me to jail." Finally, someone asked him why he kept saying this, and he replied immediately, "My father’s in jail, and I want to be with him."

Recently, teenagers in a focus group were having a very open-ended conversation, when suddenly, two of them exposed their rage at not having a father. Both of these boys’ fathers were in prison. Usually, these teenagers would keep such personal distress to themselves, so those of us running the focus group were surprised at first by their angry outbursts. We soon realized, however, that such feelings must be universal.

This is what happens: The sense of disappointment and loss felt by these adolescents turns into rage – which becomes part of the driving force for delinquent behavior. In other words, the absence of a father or a mother for any reason is one of the major factors underlying much of the antisocial behavior of these young men and women.

We understand the importance of attachment, and when a child loves a parent to whom he or she is very attached, it is a disruption that lasts a lifetime, and is reported over and over again as the child grows and matures. Our society is especially adept at destroying family units by sending parents to jail with little concern for the children who are left behind.

I am not condoning crime, but I do think alternatives to jail exist as consequences for criminal behavior. Foster care does not provide a substitute for the loved one that the child has lost. There seems to be a real disregard or lack of thought about the children who are left without a mother or a father, and jail does not correct the failure of parents to realize the damage they are doing to their children. So little is understood about child development by the general public.

Teachers get erroneous ideas and draw on them when dealing with children. For instance, teachers who participated in the Virginia studies indicated that high school children handle having an incarcerated parent better than do children who are in elementary school. My experience with the focus group shows a different part of the story: High school children are better able to repress or deny their troubled feelings and their distress over the loss of a parent.

These children are truly hurting, and this behavior on the part of their teachers might hurt them more. In another quote from the paper, "... several (n = 10) noted that they have witnessed colleagues being ‘unsupportive,’ ‘unprofessional’ and expecting less from children with incarcerated parents."

Don’t Discount Child’s Impressions

When one of our own children or one of our patients says, "My teacher doesn’t like me," our first tendency is to try to dissuade the child of his impressions. We know realistically that not every teacher treats every child the same. But for one teacher to note that another teacher is acting badly toward a child is quite an indictment, and those of us who are outside observers regarding schools are shocked and saddened to know that a child’s education can be harmed by his teacher.

However, the Virginia researchers discovered new hazards for children. Without extrapolating to other social-emotional issues in the child’s life, we can imagine how critical the child-teacher relationship is for the child. If the child, like these children, is searching for a parent substitute, the attitudes uncovered by these authors point to a real tragedy. This is particularly evident in elementary school, where in many schools, children have the same teachers all day long.

In previous columns, I have railed against the culture of punishment in which modern children often find themselves. They are punished in school, at home, in the school yard, and in the streets with bullying. They live in a world where they are always on the defense. Parents and teachers have to be aware of the stress that our children are enduring. But it’s very hard for us to educate an entire nation – or world.

Remember, several states in this country still allow corporal punishment in schools. This is much worse than a teacher sneering at a child perceived as someone who won’t achieve. Children cannot stand being humiliated or disrespected. And they feel it in the schools, where fear is generated and maintained to keep them in line. We must find ways to get adults to talk to, not yell at, children.

Imagine a world in which a child would go up to his teacher and ask "Why don’t you like me?" indicating that she has feeling and is hurting because she has become, in a subtle way, a victim of low expectations.

It might help teachers face up to their insensitive behavior toward a child who is already feeling the great loss of his own mother. We don’t live in a world where children can feel comfortable being candid with a powerful adult, but they know, they feel, and they hurt.

I have often said that it I ever write a book, it will be titled: "But She’s My Mother." Throughout my career, people have been totally unable to acknowledge the amount of hatred they felt for a parent who treated them cruelly or badly, and they assumed that it was their own fault. But they never blame the mother. One woman I have treated for several years told me repeatedly that her father was very negative toward her and very positive toward her little sister. She cannot understand it but will never acknowledge the negative feelings she has had for him for more than 50 years. Similarly, the only way children can rationalize an adult’s negative behavior is to feel they must have done something to foster that behavior. I hear people say, "I’m no good," "I’m worthless," "I can’t do it," which is the result of experiencing a system that leads them to feel less than the other children in the class.

I mentioned above the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a powerful force in the academic lives of children who get the message that they are not expected to perform as well as their best peers. The literature shows that students who belong to the stigmatized group might be particularly vulnerable to the self-fulfilling prophesies. Schools have to be neutral places where all children start at the gate together and go as far as their individual abilities allow them to.

If the child were fortunate enough to get into therapy, our tendency would be to concentrate on the incarceration of the mother. But it would be more important to find out whether the child had a teacher who loves her and believes in her ability to be a successful student – and whom she adores.

Dr. Fink is a psychiatrist and consultant in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., and professor of psychiatry at Temple University in Philadelphia.

A study of children with incarcerated parents suggests that teachers can be a powerful source of stigmatization. How would you help a child in this situation in psychotherapy?

Recently I sat down at a banquet table, and a man sitting across from me said, "I know you; you’re the doctor who taught me that children need love and praise." His comment, which I surmised was based on a lecture I had given months before, surprised me. Nonetheless, I was proud that the message had made in imprint on the mind of this stranger.

I thought of this incident when I read the paper referred to in this month’s question. The paper studies teachers and the way they react to elementary school students who have a parent in jail. The investigators, affiliated with the College of William & Mary and the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology, both in Williamsburg, reached their conclusions by conducting two studies. The first focused on the experiences of 30 teachers with children who had incarcerated parents. The second study, which involved 73 teachers, examined their expectations for competency of fictitious children who were new to class because their mothers had been incarcerated (J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 2010;31:281-90 [doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2010.04.001]). The findings devastated me because they showed that teachers make assumptions about their students’ academic potential based on one part of narrative.

Having an incarcerated parent is one of the 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, described by Dr. Vincent J. Felitti and his colleagues. It is important for all of us doctors, teachers, and so on, to be cognizant of the factors that traumatize children and to do what we can to help them deal with the trauma. The teachers in this study did the opposite. The parent’s incarceration was not a secret and, according to the article, the teachers saw the difficulty the child was having. "Regarding children’s emotional difficulties, several teachers mentioned that these children had a low threshold for frustration and would easily ‘fall apart’ or ‘fall to pieces,’ " the researchers wrote.

In times of internalizing behavior problems, teachers often mentioned that these children said they felt sick and made frequent trips to the nurse’s office but did not have noticeable physical symptoms. They also note children’s internalizing behavior, stating that many with incarcerated parents act out in the classroom and have trouble interacting with peers. When describing a female student who lives with her grandmother, one teacher said, "She had a really high incidence of behavior issues, mostly because she had a low tolerance for those who mouthed off to her, then she’d say and do whatever she felt."

These teachers could have taken the children aside and talked to them to help reduce their stress. But that did not happen. Instead, these teachers stigmatize and penalize these children by making assumptions about their academic capability and doing nothing to stabilize those who are clearly suffering. We all know the power of self-fulfilling prophesies, and this study is further proof that if the teacher decides a child is not going to do well – that child won’t do well! Elementary school children are highly malleable and need support, encouragement and, particularly, a teacher who can be a mentor, a guide, an inspiration.

Loss and Rage

Several years ago, I was told about a child, a 7-year-old in second grade, who would tell everyone that he wanted to go to jail. When he misbehaved, he would tell the adult, "Send me to jail." Finally, someone asked him why he kept saying this, and he replied immediately, "My father’s in jail, and I want to be with him."

Recently, teenagers in a focus group were having a very open-ended conversation, when suddenly, two of them exposed their rage at not having a father. Both of these boys’ fathers were in prison. Usually, these teenagers would keep such personal distress to themselves, so those of us running the focus group were surprised at first by their angry outbursts. We soon realized, however, that such feelings must be universal.

This is what happens: The sense of disappointment and loss felt by these adolescents turns into rage – which becomes part of the driving force for delinquent behavior. In other words, the absence of a father or a mother for any reason is one of the major factors underlying much of the antisocial behavior of these young men and women.

We understand the importance of attachment, and when a child loves a parent to whom he or she is very attached, it is a disruption that lasts a lifetime, and is reported over and over again as the child grows and matures. Our society is especially adept at destroying family units by sending parents to jail with little concern for the children who are left behind.

I am not condoning crime, but I do think alternatives to jail exist as consequences for criminal behavior. Foster care does not provide a substitute for the loved one that the child has lost. There seems to be a real disregard or lack of thought about the children who are left without a mother or a father, and jail does not correct the failure of parents to realize the damage they are doing to their children. So little is understood about child development by the general public.

Teachers get erroneous ideas and draw on them when dealing with children. For instance, teachers who participated in the Virginia studies indicated that high school children handle having an incarcerated parent better than do children who are in elementary school. My experience with the focus group shows a different part of the story: High school children are better able to repress or deny their troubled feelings and their distress over the loss of a parent.

These children are truly hurting, and this behavior on the part of their teachers might hurt them more. In another quote from the paper, "... several (n = 10) noted that they have witnessed colleagues being ‘unsupportive,’ ‘unprofessional’ and expecting less from children with incarcerated parents."

Don’t Discount Child’s Impressions

When one of our own children or one of our patients says, "My teacher doesn’t like me," our first tendency is to try to dissuade the child of his impressions. We know realistically that not every teacher treats every child the same. But for one teacher to note that another teacher is acting badly toward a child is quite an indictment, and those of us who are outside observers regarding schools are shocked and saddened to know that a child’s education can be harmed by his teacher.

However, the Virginia researchers discovered new hazards for children. Without extrapolating to other social-emotional issues in the child’s life, we can imagine how critical the child-teacher relationship is for the child. If the child, like these children, is searching for a parent substitute, the attitudes uncovered by these authors point to a real tragedy. This is particularly evident in elementary school, where in many schools, children have the same teachers all day long.

In previous columns, I have railed against the culture of punishment in which modern children often find themselves. They are punished in school, at home, in the school yard, and in the streets with bullying. They live in a world where they are always on the defense. Parents and teachers have to be aware of the stress that our children are enduring. But it’s very hard for us to educate an entire nation – or world.

Remember, several states in this country still allow corporal punishment in schools. This is much worse than a teacher sneering at a child perceived as someone who won’t achieve. Children cannot stand being humiliated or disrespected. And they feel it in the schools, where fear is generated and maintained to keep them in line. We must find ways to get adults to talk to, not yell at, children.

Imagine a world in which a child would go up to his teacher and ask "Why don’t you like me?" indicating that she has feeling and is hurting because she has become, in a subtle way, a victim of low expectations.

It might help teachers face up to their insensitive behavior toward a child who is already feeling the great loss of his own mother. We don’t live in a world where children can feel comfortable being candid with a powerful adult, but they know, they feel, and they hurt.

I have often said that it I ever write a book, it will be titled: "But She’s My Mother." Throughout my career, people have been totally unable to acknowledge the amount of hatred they felt for a parent who treated them cruelly or badly, and they assumed that it was their own fault. But they never blame the mother. One woman I have treated for several years told me repeatedly that her father was very negative toward her and very positive toward her little sister. She cannot understand it but will never acknowledge the negative feelings she has had for him for more than 50 years. Similarly, the only way children can rationalize an adult’s negative behavior is to feel they must have done something to foster that behavior. I hear people say, "I’m no good," "I’m worthless," "I can’t do it," which is the result of experiencing a system that leads them to feel less than the other children in the class.

I mentioned above the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a powerful force in the academic lives of children who get the message that they are not expected to perform as well as their best peers. The literature shows that students who belong to the stigmatized group might be particularly vulnerable to the self-fulfilling prophesies. Schools have to be neutral places where all children start at the gate together and go as far as their individual abilities allow them to.

If the child were fortunate enough to get into therapy, our tendency would be to concentrate on the incarceration of the mother. But it would be more important to find out whether the child had a teacher who loves her and believes in her ability to be a successful student – and whom she adores.

Dr. Fink is a psychiatrist and consultant in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., and professor of psychiatry at Temple University in Philadelphia.

A study of children with incarcerated parents suggests that teachers can be a powerful source of stigmatization. How would you help a child in this situation in psychotherapy?

Recently I sat down at a banquet table, and a man sitting across from me said, "I know you; you’re the doctor who taught me that children need love and praise." His comment, which I surmised was based on a lecture I had given months before, surprised me. Nonetheless, I was proud that the message had made in imprint on the mind of this stranger.

I thought of this incident when I read the paper referred to in this month’s question. The paper studies teachers and the way they react to elementary school students who have a parent in jail. The investigators, affiliated with the College of William & Mary and the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology, both in Williamsburg, reached their conclusions by conducting two studies. The first focused on the experiences of 30 teachers with children who had incarcerated parents. The second study, which involved 73 teachers, examined their expectations for competency of fictitious children who were new to class because their mothers had been incarcerated (J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 2010;31:281-90 [doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2010.04.001]). The findings devastated me because they showed that teachers make assumptions about their students’ academic potential based on one part of narrative.

Having an incarcerated parent is one of the 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, described by Dr. Vincent J. Felitti and his colleagues. It is important for all of us doctors, teachers, and so on, to be cognizant of the factors that traumatize children and to do what we can to help them deal with the trauma. The teachers in this study did the opposite. The parent’s incarceration was not a secret and, according to the article, the teachers saw the difficulty the child was having. "Regarding children’s emotional difficulties, several teachers mentioned that these children had a low threshold for frustration and would easily ‘fall apart’ or ‘fall to pieces,’ " the researchers wrote.

In times of internalizing behavior problems, teachers often mentioned that these children said they felt sick and made frequent trips to the nurse’s office but did not have noticeable physical symptoms. They also note children’s internalizing behavior, stating that many with incarcerated parents act out in the classroom and have trouble interacting with peers. When describing a female student who lives with her grandmother, one teacher said, "She had a really high incidence of behavior issues, mostly because she had a low tolerance for those who mouthed off to her, then she’d say and do whatever she felt."

These teachers could have taken the children aside and talked to them to help reduce their stress. But that did not happen. Instead, these teachers stigmatize and penalize these children by making assumptions about their academic capability and doing nothing to stabilize those who are clearly suffering. We all know the power of self-fulfilling prophesies, and this study is further proof that if the teacher decides a child is not going to do well – that child won’t do well! Elementary school children are highly malleable and need support, encouragement and, particularly, a teacher who can be a mentor, a guide, an inspiration.

Loss and Rage

Several years ago, I was told about a child, a 7-year-old in second grade, who would tell everyone that he wanted to go to jail. When he misbehaved, he would tell the adult, "Send me to jail." Finally, someone asked him why he kept saying this, and he replied immediately, "My father’s in jail, and I want to be with him."

Recently, teenagers in a focus group were having a very open-ended conversation, when suddenly, two of them exposed their rage at not having a father. Both of these boys’ fathers were in prison. Usually, these teenagers would keep such personal distress to themselves, so those of us running the focus group were surprised at first by their angry outbursts. We soon realized, however, that such feelings must be universal.

This is what happens: The sense of disappointment and loss felt by these adolescents turns into rage – which becomes part of the driving force for delinquent behavior. In other words, the absence of a father or a mother for any reason is one of the major factors underlying much of the antisocial behavior of these young men and women.

We understand the importance of attachment, and when a child loves a parent to whom he or she is very attached, it is a disruption that lasts a lifetime, and is reported over and over again as the child grows and matures. Our society is especially adept at destroying family units by sending parents to jail with little concern for the children who are left behind.

I am not condoning crime, but I do think alternatives to jail exist as consequences for criminal behavior. Foster care does not provide a substitute for the loved one that the child has lost. There seems to be a real disregard or lack of thought about the children who are left without a mother or a father, and jail does not correct the failure of parents to realize the damage they are doing to their children. So little is understood about child development by the general public.

Teachers get erroneous ideas and draw on them when dealing with children. For instance, teachers who participated in the Virginia studies indicated that high school children handle having an incarcerated parent better than do children who are in elementary school. My experience with the focus group shows a different part of the story: High school children are better able to repress or deny their troubled feelings and their distress over the loss of a parent.

These children are truly hurting, and this behavior on the part of their teachers might hurt them more. In another quote from the paper, "... several (n = 10) noted that they have witnessed colleagues being ‘unsupportive,’ ‘unprofessional’ and expecting less from children with incarcerated parents."

Don’t Discount Child’s Impressions

When one of our own children or one of our patients says, "My teacher doesn’t like me," our first tendency is to try to dissuade the child of his impressions. We know realistically that not every teacher treats every child the same. But for one teacher to note that another teacher is acting badly toward a child is quite an indictment, and those of us who are outside observers regarding schools are shocked and saddened to know that a child’s education can be harmed by his teacher.

However, the Virginia researchers discovered new hazards for children. Without extrapolating to other social-emotional issues in the child’s life, we can imagine how critical the child-teacher relationship is for the child. If the child, like these children, is searching for a parent substitute, the attitudes uncovered by these authors point to a real tragedy. This is particularly evident in elementary school, where in many schools, children have the same teachers all day long.

In previous columns, I have railed against the culture of punishment in which modern children often find themselves. They are punished in school, at home, in the school yard, and in the streets with bullying. They live in a world where they are always on the defense. Parents and teachers have to be aware of the stress that our children are enduring. But it’s very hard for us to educate an entire nation – or world.

Remember, several states in this country still allow corporal punishment in schools. This is much worse than a teacher sneering at a child perceived as someone who won’t achieve. Children cannot stand being humiliated or disrespected. And they feel it in the schools, where fear is generated and maintained to keep them in line. We must find ways to get adults to talk to, not yell at, children.

Imagine a world in which a child would go up to his teacher and ask "Why don’t you like me?" indicating that she has feeling and is hurting because she has become, in a subtle way, a victim of low expectations.

It might help teachers face up to their insensitive behavior toward a child who is already feeling the great loss of his own mother. We don’t live in a world where children can feel comfortable being candid with a powerful adult, but they know, they feel, and they hurt.

I have often said that it I ever write a book, it will be titled: "But She’s My Mother." Throughout my career, people have been totally unable to acknowledge the amount of hatred they felt for a parent who treated them cruelly or badly, and they assumed that it was their own fault. But they never blame the mother. One woman I have treated for several years told me repeatedly that her father was very negative toward her and very positive toward her little sister. She cannot understand it but will never acknowledge the negative feelings she has had for him for more than 50 years. Similarly, the only way children can rationalize an adult’s negative behavior is to feel they must have done something to foster that behavior. I hear people say, "I’m no good," "I’m worthless," "I can’t do it," which is the result of experiencing a system that leads them to feel less than the other children in the class.

I mentioned above the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a powerful force in the academic lives of children who get the message that they are not expected to perform as well as their best peers. The literature shows that students who belong to the stigmatized group might be particularly vulnerable to the self-fulfilling prophesies. Schools have to be neutral places where all children start at the gate together and go as far as their individual abilities allow them to.

If the child were fortunate enough to get into therapy, our tendency would be to concentrate on the incarceration of the mother. But it would be more important to find out whether the child had a teacher who loves her and believes in her ability to be a successful student – and whom she adores.

Dr. Fink is a psychiatrist and consultant in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., and professor of psychiatry at Temple University in Philadelphia.