I tell my mother that … sometimes he didn’t love us –Young adults’ experiences of childhood in refugee families: A qualitative approach

Abstract

In addition to managing dual cultural identities, children of refugees face the potential burden of living with caregivers struggling in the aftermath of trauma, loss, and adversity. Using an ecological and transactional understanding of child development, this qualitative study explored the subjective experiences of young adults who grew up in a refugee family in Norway. Findings show that parental suffering have affected their daily life and development in different ways. This article elucidates how children of refugees have experienced the relationship with their parents through childhood, adolescence, and into early adulthood, and how they have managed and negotiated developmental tasks, and explored patterns of strategies developed to regulate feelings of relational distress.