When a child shrugs, looks away, and mutters, “I don’t care,” most adults hear defiance, disrespect, or apathy. But for children who’ve experienced childhood trauma, those three words are rarely about attitude.

They’re about protection and bracing themselves for what's to come next!

“I don’t care” is a survival strategy, a shield against overwhelming pain. It means, “If I stop caring, I can stop hurting.” These words often emerge from children who have endured abuse, multiple losses, disrupted attachments, or repeated disappointments. To the untrained eye, they may seem indifferent. But beneath that shell lies a child who once cared deeply and was hurt for it.

When a child enters foster care, everything familiar, such as parents, home, siblings, routines, and even smells, is suddenly gone. The nervous system, designed to thrive through connection, becomes wired for survival. Each new placement brings a new test: Will this adult stay? Can I trust this home? Will I be sent away again?

This chronic uncertainty reshapes the brain. The limbic system, the seat of emotion, becomes hypervigilant. The prefrontal cortex, where reasoning lives, goes offline in moments of stress. So when a caregiver or therapist or teacher asks a child to talk about their feelings, they might respond with “I don’t care,” not because they don’t feel, but because feeling is a threat to survival.

In therapy, I often draw what I call “The Inner Life of a Foster Child.” It’s a house filled with rooms representing the multiple

© Psychology Today