Foster children's views of their birth parents: A review of the literature

Several bodies of research, theory, and practice document that even maltreated children develop and maintain attachment relationships with their parents. While this attachment can confound clinicians, it can be understood from an evolutionary perspective: Attachments – even with abusive parents – increase the survival of the species by ensuring that dependent infants and children in danger will seek proximity and comfort from a caregiving adult. Despite the phenomenon being well documented, a missing piece from the literature is whether children – who have alternative caregiving options – will still express attachment to their maltreating parent. To address this question, 27 studies in which children currently in foster care were interviewed were coded for presence/absence of three expressions of attachment: (1) Yearning for the birth parents (2) fear and anxiety due to separation from the birth parents and (3) minimization of the maltreatment perpetrated against them by the birth family. We also asked whether, despite the presence of attachment, maltreated children would express relief upon removal from the home of the birth parent. Most of the studies reported that at least some children expressed these four related beliefs, providing important insight for clinicians working with maltreated children.