Parenting from Prison

Parenting from prison can be one of the saddest and most challenging thing a parent can face. There many reasons that this is a heartbreaking situation. Any long distance parenting is difficult, but parenting from prison adds yet another layer to the barriers to effective and positive parenting.

When parents and children are separated, communication becomes even more difficult. Letters and phone calls are completely inadequate when it comes tothe intimacy that is involved in good parenting. But when parenting from prison, sometimes these means are all a family has. Not only is there a stigma for the child when mother or father is parenting from prison, but the normal family interactions are impossible. It doesn’t matter what circumstances caused the family to be separated in this manner. What does matter is that in order to preserve the mother and child or father and child relationships and bond, the prison has to make it a huge priority. At this point it must be said that there are some crimes committed that makes contact between the child and his parent a negative thing. But situations like these are in the minority

Sometimes parenting from prison is a priority for these institutions. They’re often programs that support parenting from prison. These programs are organized so that children can be transported to the prison on a regular basis, providing in person visitation with their parents. The problem with this type of program is that sometimes an individual is sentenced and incarcerated to prison far away from home. Under these circumstances is very difficult if not impossible for the child to make a long journey in order to visit with his or her parent. So parenting from prison in these cases is only possible through the mail and an occasional phone call.

With the prison industry growing at an incredible rate, one would think that by design, parents would be placed at facilities near their children so there is hope for successful parenting from prison. This is not always the case. Although there are advocates who work on behalf of children whose parents are in prison, the courts are not always sympathetic and parents are sent to prisons to sometimes in separate states from where their children reside. this makes parenting from prison overwhelmingly difficult and the system sometimes requires be impossible guidelines for parents to retain custody over their children. In these extreme cases, although not rare parents lose their parental rights because they cannot comply with the unreasonable requirements and parenting from prison is no longer an issue.

There are some states that have introduced programs to their prisons that allow insurance and very young children to reside on the premises with they’re incarcerated mother. Very often the woman enters her prison sentence during the pregnancy and the very lucky ones are allowed to bring their newborns back to specially designed family quarters for mothers and babies. In this case the new mom will not be parenting from prison to be parenting in prison.

Nobody enters parenting with the idea that someday there will be parenting from prison . Unfortunately this sometimes happens but with the sensitively designed of parenting programs, parenting from prison does not have to be a tragedy. With short sentences and regular visits, parenting from prison can have a good outcome.

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