Extended parent-child separations: impact on substance-abusing Hispanic adolescents.
Extended parent-child separations: impact on substance-abusing Hispanic adolescents.
复制标题
亲子分离时间延长：对滥用药物的西班牙裔青少年的影响。
DOI：
10.1111/j.1744-6155.2008.00134.x
复制
发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Santisteban,DanielA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mena,MaiteP;Mitrani,VictoriaB;Muir,JoanA;Santisteban,DanielA
Extended parent–child separations, which can take many different forms and occur for different reasons, have the potential to be disruptive to healthy family processes such as attachment (Mitrani, Santisteban, & Muir, 2004) and to healthy adolescent functioning. Two types of separations are most prominent in substanceabusing Hispanic adolescents and their families. The first commonly seen type in immigrant Hispanic families is family separations that occur when family members, specifically mothers and children, immigrate separately to the United States. The second type—namely, nonimmigration-related separations—can occur because parents are unable to care for the children due to their own financial, mental health, or substance abuse issues; the child’s behavioral problems are beyond the parents’ control, requiring a new context such as extended family or a residential setting for drug use; or other family circumstances such as divorce and death. Because Hispanic family systems tend to have close extended networks, it is not unusual for extended family members to be available to serve as parental surrogates. This is a strength, insofar as it allows for support and accommodation in times of family crisis. At times, however, there may be negative repercussions resulting from parent–child separations. The purposes of this column are to explore some of the clinical characteristics that appear to be associated with these separations and to discuss some of the important clinical implications for nurses as well as other healthcare disciplines. Many substance-abusing Hispanic adolescents have immigrated to the United States, as their parents have initiated a “stepwise” migration pattern (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1992). A substantial number of women are migrating alone, leaving children with extended family members in their country of origin and reuniting with them years later. This pattern has replaced earlier patterns in which men were more typically the family pioneers who made the initial migration. In this new wave in which the mothers must initiate the family immigration process, there are often no fathers in the picture, and the children are left in the hands of extended family. In addition, during the separation from their mothers, children often develop a strong bond with their surrogate caregivers and experience a second separation upon reunification with their mothers: the first from their mothers and the second from their surrogate mothers (Falicov, 1998; Sewell-Coker, Hamilton-Collins, & Fein, 1985). Suarez-Orozco, Todorova, and Louie (2002), in their study of a nonclinical sample of 385 early adolescents from China, Central America, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico, found that youngsters who had experienced immigration-related separations were more likely to report depressive symptoms than their nonseparated counterparts. The groups did not differ on composite psychological symptoms or other psychological symptom subscales.The non-immigration-related types of separations are diverse and encompass a wide range of reasons for a mother–child separation. For example, when a youth’s behavioral problems are out of control and parents feel that they cannot manage the problem while the children are in their household, they may turn to extended family members for help. At times, parents may be attempting to remove the child from an unhealthy neighborhood context or from deviant peers. At other times, the parents may feel that removing the problem child is needed to “insulate” the younger children who may be negatively influenced by exposure to the problem behavior. At other times, the family may be removing the youth because …
