Psychologists and social workers have long been mystified by the serious emotional and behavior disorders so common among abused and neglected children. They noted that many foster and adoptive children could not form secure attachments even when placed in stable environments with loving families. It was later suspected that the trauma of abuse and neglect was only partially responsible for their difficulties, because youngsters not subjected to harsh treatment were vulnerable to developing similar problems if they received inconsistent nurturing or lost a primary caregiver before age five.

Day Care Dilemmas

The need for both parents to work in order to make ends meet means that large numbers of youngsters end up in full-time day care at extremely young ages. Although there are many excellent centers where little clients' needs for consistent nurturing are met, many operations are definitely substandard.

The revolving door of poorly paid caregivers with overcrowded classrooms prevents the formation of adequate bonds. Estimates of employee turnover in day care centers range from 25 to 50 percent per year! If a youngster does become attached to a staff member, the deep sense of loss when the relationship abruptly ends can make little ones leery of trusting the next person to head the classroom.

Moreover, parents who feel guilty about the lack of time and energy they are able to devote to their youngsters and the quality of care they receive in day care are loath to spend their few precious hours together tangling over rules and limits. They try to overlook as much as they can only to explode when they can no longer tolerate their child's misbehavior. As a result, many children miss the predictable affection and consistent limits they need to trust that their parents have their best interests at heart and are truly there to help them learn to behave properly.

Children of Divorce

Losing caregivers affects the parent-child relationship as well. After all, if all the other adults keep disappearing, how can a child trust that his parent won't leave, too? In fact, huge numbers of parents do disappear. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. The offspring of disrupted marriages display subsequent difficulties with intimacy and commitment, as demonstrated by the fact that children of divorce are twice as likely to divorce as those reared in intact families. They are at serious risk of abusing drugs and alcohol, delinquency, dropping out of school, and having a baby during the teenage years.

The TV Factor

Television has served to weaken parent-child bonds as well. Children are likely to spend most of their time at home in front of the screen instead of interacting with their parents. Even toddlers are more influenced by what commercials say they should have than by what their parents say. By preschool, youngsters scream for the breakfast cereals, sodas, and toys they have seen on TV; they also complain to their day care friends about their parents' refusal to buy them certain toys and wage battles at home over whether they will go to school dressed in what their parents have chosen or wear the fashions popular with their nursery school classmates. By the tween years, many parents find their opinions hold little sway. Corporate advertisers rule their children's minds.