I haven’t posted about it here but I wrote a children’s book titled “Missing Daddy.” It was republished by Haymarket Books and is actually currently on sale if you purchase it directly through them at 50% off for the holidays. I have a website for the book as well that includes more resources.

As I’ve been doing some book events, I wanted to create a document that would summarize some of the things to keep in mind when discussing incarceration with children. For example, I share the following key ideas to discuss with children who have incarcerated loved ones:

You are not alone – many other children and adults have loved ones in jail and prison.

You aren’t to blame – this is not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

How are you feeling? — Let’s identify your feelings. Make a feelings chart. Children experience shame, guilt, loneliness, anger, hurt, mourning, grief, love, sadness, etc.

Separation hurts. Acknowledge the pain.

Children are bombarded with messages that “bad” people go to jail/prison. Stress that criminalization is not about good or bad people but about having broken a law. 

Questions some children wish they could ask their loved one:

• Why are you in jail/prison?
• When are you coming home?
• Will you forget about me?
• Will you still love me? How will I know?

Help children navigate questions that others may have.  They may experience bullying or persistent questions about what their loved one did to end up in jail/prison. Some things that children can say in response to those questions:

• I don’t know.
• It doesn’t matter to me. I love them.

In general, adults should:

• Be truthful.
• Listen.
• Honor the child’s feelings
• Help the child stay connected to their loved one either through visits, phone calls or letters. 

Adults are also impacted by the incarceration of loved ones and can also be traumatized. Be careful about projecting that trauma onto children. What are your own biases, experiences, etc…? 

I asked Flynn Nichols to create an illustrated one pager to summarize these key points and he did a terrific job.

From Narratively:

“William Koger lives in Washington, D.C., with his mother, Sandra, and three boys: Isaiah, 11, Demetri, 10, and Deshawn, 8. But it is the absence of their mother, Sherrie Harris — who is serving a long-term sentence at Hazelton Penitentiary, in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia — that looms over the household. William took on the unexpected role of primary caregiver to all three children, including one stepchild, but he has been in and out of jobs and in and out of prison himself. After being injured in a serious car accident, he is now unemployed and often in severe pain. The family is stretched financially and often unable to afford food or medicine. The children are emotionally scarred by their mother’s absence and sometimes withdraw into their shells or act out. Only when pressed do they express their intense yearning for their mother to come home, rejoin the family, and provide them with the maternal love they are missing. Sherrie Harris has been incarcerated since 2006 and is scheduled to be released in 2017.

This piece is part of a much larger multimedia project, titled Locked Apart, that includes multiple families in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. I believe it is appropriate to acknowledge that family members of offenders are among those who are victimized when a crime occurs. Like the voices of crime victims and their families, the voices of offenders’ family members should be heard.”

Watch this video.

Locked Apart from Narratively on Vimeo.