What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

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The cycle of hello and goodbye can quietly intensify a child’s grief and longing.

What looks like misbehavior is often grief and loss rising to the surface after connection.

Children may release emotions later, when they feel safe enough to let go.

The child’s nervous system expresses what they cannot yet put into words.

It often catches foster parents off guard.

A child returns from a visit with their birth parent, and for a moment, things seem…fine. Maybe even calm. There’s relief: “That went better than expected.”

But later that evening or the next day, everything unravels.

The child melts down over something small.

They become aggressive, defiant, withdrawn, or inconsolable.

They regress to bedwetting, baby talk, and clinginess.

They push you away…just when you are trying to comfort them.

And the question arises, often with confusion and heartbreak: “Why now? The child seemed to be OK after.”

A Story You May Recognize

Eight-year-old Matthew had been in his foster home for six months.

He was thoughtful and funny, and on most days, he kept himself tightly wound. He followed his caregivers' motions, helped set the table, and rarely experienced meltdowns, not because he didn’t have big feelings, but because he had learned to hold them in.

His foster mother described him as “adjusting well.”

Then came the court-ordered visits. Every other Saturday, Matthew would see his birth mother for two hours at a supervised family center. During the visits, he smiled, he laughed, and showed her his drawings. And when it was time to leave, he walked away quietly.

No tears. No protest.

“See you next time,” he would say.

But that night, everything changed. Matthew refused dinner. He snapped at his foster siblings. He slammed his bedroom door, something he had never done before. Later, when his foster mom gently checked on him, he screamed:

“You’re not my real mom! I don’t have to listen to you!”

And then, just as suddenly, he collapsed into sobs, deep, body-shaking sobs that seemed far bigger than the moment. The next morning, he wet the bed. Again, his foster mom was left wondering: What just happened?

Visits Reopen the Wound of Separation

For children in foster care, visits are not just visits. They are emotional re-exposures to the original rupture: the separation from their birth parent, which is known as separation trauma. Even when visits are positive, they stir up deep, intense emotions in the child’s nervous system. It is what researchers call ambiguous loss, a loss that is ongoing, unresolved, and confusing, and which lives quietly inside them.

The parent is alive.The love is real.But the relationship is fractured.

And the child's silent conflict unfolds:

“Why can’t I be with you?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

They don’t have the words for this. So, they show us through behavior.

The Body Remembers What the Mind Cannot Explain

Trauma doesn’t live in logic. It lives in the body.

As Dr. Bruce Perry’s neurodevelopmental research shows, children process stress from the bottom up:

So when Matthew left his mother that day, his thinking brain may have said:

“I’ll see her again.”

But his body felt something entirely different:

Loss—happening all over again

Fear—what if she disappears?

Longing—I want to stay

Confusion—where do I belong?

What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

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And the body responded the only way it knows how:

Fight (anger, defiance)

Flight (avoidance, escape)

Freeze (shutdown, numbness)

Fawn (people-pleasing)

What looks like “undesirable behavior” is often a nervous system trying to survive overwhelming grief.

Why the “Crash” Comes Later

What many don’t realize is that children often hold it together during the visit because they may:

Want to please their parent

Fear doing something wrong

Stay in a heightened, watchful state

Avoid control, because they have no control

But when they return to a safe environment…the body lets go. All the feelings that were held in place come flooding out. This is why the hardest behaviors show up:

Or even 24 to 48 hours later

Matthew wasn’t “acting out.” He was finally releasing the stored grief reactions.

Loyalty Conflicts: “If I Love Them, Am I Betraying You?”

After visits, many children experience a painful internal tug-of-war. Loving one caregiver can feel like betraying another. So children may:

Reject their foster parent

Idealize their birth parent

Say deeply hurtful things (“I hate it here" or “I want my real mom.”)

These words cut deep and drive caregivers to question what to do. But please know, they are not attacks. They are expressions of divided attachment and identity confusion. This is not your fault or your child's fault. It's the fault of a family court system that doesn't take into account how visits impact children emotionally.

Grief With Nowhere to Go

Matthew never said, “I miss my mom.”

He didn’t say, “I’m confused.”

He didn’t say, “My heart hurts.”

Instead, he slammed doors.He yelled.He wet the bed.

Because grief in foster care is complicated:

And it feels unsafe to express

Grief doesn’t disappear. It comes out sideways.

What Helps: Supporting the Child After Visits

When we understand why this is happening, everything changes.

1. Expect the Reaction

Tell yourself: “This is part of the process.”

Anticipation softens frustration and builds compassion.

2. Regulate Before You Relate

A dysregulated child cannot process words.

Before talking, help the child’s body settle, utilizing quiet time, sensory tools (soft blanket, fidget, weighted items), movement (walk, trampoline, stretching), music, or calming "parallel play" side-by-side routines (coloring, building blocks, dolls).

Your regulation becomes their safety.

3. Name the Experience Gently

Without pressure, say:“Sometimes after visits, big feelings show up.”“Your body might still be holding a lot.”“It can be hard to say goodbye and hello, all over again.”"Sad feelings, angry feelings, and confused feelings all matter."

You are giving language to what feels unspeakable.

4. Make a “Transition Book” to Create Emotional Safety

For many children, the hardest part of a visit is not just the goodbye, it’s the uncertainty surrounding it.

A powerful way to support this is through a Transition Visit Book Intervention from my treatment manual, The Traumatized & At-Risk Youth Toolbox. It is a simple, visual narrative of words or photos that walks the child through the beginning, middle, and end of the visit. This helps the child’s brain organize the experience and reduces the fear of the unknown.

Beginning: Preparing for the visit“I am going to visit my mom/dad.”(Include what they get to bring, where they are going, who will be there, and how they will get there.)

Middle:“I will say goodbye to my foster mom, and I get to spend time with my mom or dad. It's OK to feel excited or nervous."(Add simple photos or drawings of the visit, positive expectations such as playing, talking, eating.)

End:“When the visit is over, I will go back with my foster parent.”(Add simple photos or drawings of returning to their foster home.)

Return to Safety:“I will come back home. I know what's happening. I will see them again another time.”

This is not about minimizing the importance of the birth parent. It is about anchoring the child in predictability and truth: This is a visit, not a return.

You can read the book:

Over time, it becomes an internal map that tells the child, “I know what’s happening. I know what comes next. I am safe.”

And when the brain feels safe, the heart doesn’t have to work so hard to hold everything together.

5. Stay Steady, Not Perfect

Children don’t need perfection.

Emotional availability

Your calm becomes their compass.

The day after a visit is not just a day. It is an emotional echo of grief, loss, and attachment.

and what cannot yet be resolved

Matthew didn’t fall apart because the visit went badly. He fell apart because it mattered. And when we begin to see behavior as a communication of grief, not defiance, we shift from asking:

“What’s wrong with this child?”

“What is this child carrying…and how can I help them hold this grief?”

And in that sacred shift, a foster child's inner world is no longer hidden; it can be gently seen, deeply felt, and safely held.

Pauline, B., & Boss, P. (2009). Ambiguous loss: Learning to live with unresolved grief. Harvard University Press.

Perry, B. D. (2006). The neurosequential model of therapeutics: Applying principles of neuroscience to clinical work with traumatized and maltreated children. Working with traumatized youth in child welfare, 27-52.

Siegel, D. J. (2020). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. Guilford Publications.

Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

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