The family drawings of at-risk children: Concurrent relations with contact with incarcerated parents, caregiver behavior, and stress

Abstract

The current study examined children's attachment representations as assessed with their family drawings in relation to contact with an incarcerated or estranged parent, caregiver behavior, and family stress in a high-risk sample of children (N = 44, M _age = 8.14), 55% of whom had incarcerated parents. Greater phone, mail, and physical contact with an incarcerated parent was associated with more role reversal in children's family drawings. Additional results show that child-reports of more hostile caregiver behavior were associated with greater overall insecurity in their family drawings; child and caregiver reports of stress were associated with increased global pathology and bizarreness/dissociation in children's family drawings. Given the lack of research on concurrent familial-based correlates of ratings made of children's family drawings, these results provide additional insights into children's representations of attachment relationships in early middle childhood. Further, the results regarding contact with incarcerated parents have implications for researchers and clinicians working with families impacted by parental incarceration.

Keywords:

• parental incarceration
• family drawings
• attachment representations
• high-risk children
• parenting behavior

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the assistance of the many individuals who helped make this research study possible, including the participants, jail administrators and staff, and program coordinators. We would also like to express our gratitude to the many talented undergraduate students who contributed to this research project particularly Whitley Aamodt, Kelly Carter, Ashley Hampton, and Matthew Ward. Anne Ciccone is now at the Louisiana State University, Health Sciences Center. Laura C. Wilson in now at the Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech.