Hands on barbed wire fence

CBS News: Border Separations Show Why the U.S. Doesn’t Have Orphanages Any More

Boy stands behind fence

In a recent CBS News article, “Border Separations Show why the U.S. Doesn’t Have Orphanages Any More,” College of Education professor Nathan Fox explained how separating children from their parents can have negative effects on children’s cognitive, social and psychiatric development.

“They’re imprisoned and separated from their parents who they look to for safety, security, love and protection,” Dr. Fox said to CBS News. “That will have a significant impact upon these children’s behavior and upon their mental health.”  

Dr. Fox is a distinguished professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. He is the director of the Child Development Lab and focuses his research on temperament, development of emotion and emotion regulation, developmental psychophysiology and infant cognitive/social development.