Psychological issues. Contributing factors to psychiatric
disorders and maladjustment in refugee children include malnutrition,
infection, physical neglect and abuse, racism and
harassment, and identity conflicts (Westermeyer, 1991). Utilizing
a stress model, Athey and Ahearn (1991) identified
trauma, loss, and severe deprivation as experiences that place
refugee children at increased risk for “psychiatric morbidity,
dysfunctional behavior patterns (such as suicide, drug and
alcohol abuse, or delinquency), or “incompetence” in love,
work, or play” (p. 4).
A lack of family support is another key threat to the positive
emotional development of refugee children. Family disintegration
due to death and separation may be compounded
by a parent’s inability to meet the emotional needs of their
children due to their own psychological trauma and pain
(Athey & Ahearn, 1991), an important reminder that the refugee
child must be viewed within the context of family. Often
refugee parents are dependent on their children who are more
adept at learning the language and ways of their new country.
Such parent-child role reversals put refugee children at risk
for having important childhood emotional needs unmet.