Children behind bars: The lived experiences of adult children with incarcerated parents

• Main Authors: Doble, Camilla Patricia M., Naval, Daniel Jose S., Bailon, Bianca Patricia P., Avancena, Juan Gabriel L.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2016
• Subjects: Children of prisoners; Prisoners; Parents; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/5852
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study aims to magnify the lived experiences of adults who grew up in the absence of their incarcerated parents. The researchers explored the thoughts, emotions, and perceptions of their lived experiences. This lead to the creation of the themes and meanings ascribed to these lived experiences. Parental incarceration is a type of separation that significantly affects the child's behavioral and emotional implications, such as coping strategies. Interpretative Phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used as the analytical framework of this study. The researchers used an interview schedule for the 7 participants 5 are children of parents who committed common crimes while 2 are children of Martial Law detainees. The participants are adult children who are at least 18 years old with an incarcerated parent. The analysis reveals 3 super-ordinate themes namely, separation resulting from incarceration, consequences of the separation to the child and outcomes of the separation to the child. Themes were also created under each super-ordinate theme which results from the children's perspectives, socio-emotional development and thoughts. The study captured 3 main points. First, the adult children are able to thrive and to become resilient when social support is present and when they are able to regulate their emotions. Second, external and internal stigmatization is present during the experience. Lastly, the adult children were able to conceptualize justice and morality when they realized that they were a part of a larger society.