Those administering policies that separate children from their parents clearly don’t understand the effects of early childhood trauma on the developing brain. In an interview with Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald, Dr Michael Meaney explains how parents insulate their children from stresses while their brains mature. When children are traumatically separated from parents their brain is forced to grow up too fast.
These tragic outcomes are not restricted to recent Latin American migrants to the USA, we have vivid Canada examples in studies of the long-term effects of the Indian residential school system and ‘Sixties Scoop’ where Indigenous children were seized from their parents and placed in foster homes or put up for adoption.
Listen to the interview: Separating children from parents can negatively affect brain development
A world leader in epigenetics and mental health, Dr Michael Meaney is a researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University