Media Questions

If you write about children, the foster care system, domestic violence or the impact of divorce on children, you may want to interview Mary Kilgore or Mitch Kilgore. Their children's book about a child struggling with the disappearance of his mother brings up fears and doubts that are common when a parent is away—for work or military service, because of a divorce or abandonment, or because of death.

As you prepare for interviewing either or both of this clinical social worker/mother-son team, you may find the following questions helpful:

• What is abandonment fear?
• Why is abandonment fear such a concern in children and adolescents?
• What kind of behavior suggests a child fears abandonment?
• How can adults reassure a child who has been abandoned or fears that?
• Why might a very young child confuse a long absence such as deployment with abandonment?
• Why do kids often assume they've done something to cause a parent's disappearance?