Trends in Child Development and the Family

I was invited to address the Chief Justices of the United States at their Annual Meeting on August 1, 2000, in Rapid City, South Dakota. The theme of my talk was to be “Trends in Child Development and the Family.” The National Council of Juvenile and Family Courts wished me to cover the following topics in the hour and a half that I was allotted: attachment theory, the impact of separation and loss on the child, the trauma of removal, the child's concept of time, and issues of witnessing domestic violence. At first, I was alarmed and amused by the magnitude of the assignment and the meagerness of the time frame, but I soon realized that the Council members had no idea about the complexity of the issues they wanted addressed, and that, in fact, their expectations reflected the state of their understanding of psychological issues. I was assured that they would have no objection to my selecting from among the subjects suggested and setting my own priorities as to which were the most urgent.

I also discovered that I was the only non-legal professional on the program, and that I would be preceded by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and followed by several judges who deal primarily with dependent children and issues of child welfare.

I embarked on several lines of inquiry in making my choice of subjects and preparing my presentation. First, I approached several child research colleagues, among them Steve Seligman and Alicia Lieberman, to make sure that I was up to date on the latest research findings in attachment. I also called Judge Edwards of the Santa Clara Court in California, who was slated to follow my presentation, to discuss his agenda so that my talk might align with his interest in obtaining increased family court resources from within the legal system in California. I then spoke with a number of practicing attorneys, law professors, and Appellate Court judges to find out what I