For over a decade, I’ve built a career supporting children and families in many roles—teaching assistant, social worker, school counselor, designated safeguarding lead, and most recently, developing over 100 lessons for school-aged children focused on safety and wellbeing. These experiences have taken me all over the world facilitating professional development for educators and school leaders, sometimes across several countries in a single month.
Recently, I was asked to develop guidance on caregiver absence and affluent neglect. In true Tiese fashion, I dove headfirst into the research, eager to become a subject-matter expert who could train safeguarding professionals in international schools.
And then came the uncomfortable part.
I think I might be guilty.
As a busy, frequently traveling parent of a teenager, the research forced me to ask some hard questions about my relationship with my son, and with his school. I have high expectations for myself and for him. I imagine a future marked by excellence, leadership, and economic freedom. But what I had to ask myself was this: how is that vision impacting him right now?
Could I Be Guilty of Affluent Neglect?
My first reaction was, this doesn’t apply to me because I’m not wealthy. But affluent neglect isn’t limited to financial wealth. It also applies to parents with perceived economic, social, or cultural capital. That means my professional standing in the school community alone could lead others to view me as “affluent.”
My second reaction was, this can’t be neglect; my child has everything he needs. He has a safe home, food, clothes that fit (even with size 49/15 shoes), adult supervision, a domestic helper, and a strong support system when I travel.
But affluent neglect rarely looks like what we traditionally imagine. It usually has little to do with unmet basic needs. Instead, it is more closely tied to emotional neglect, parental absence or alienation, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—all of which can have long-term effects on mental and physical health.
Children experiencing affluent neglect may be well-dressed, fed, and supervised, yet show signs such as:
Wouldn’t Someone Tell Me?
If my child were experiencing any of these indicators, I’d know… right? And if I somehow didn’t, surely the school would tell me.
While I trust that schools employ skilled safeguarding professionals, it would be negligent (no pun intended) not to acknowledge the social politics that exist in all communities, especially international ones. There are always unspoken factors that make people hesitate before approaching someone about their parenting.
I’ve seen this firsthand and research supports this. Barriers to addressing affluent neglect include class bias, concerns about interfering in a “private family matter,” fear of parental power or retaliation, tensions between child wellbeing and customer satisfaction in fee-paying schools, limited consent to collaborate with private healthcare providers, parental distance from the school, misunderstood thresholds for emotional neglect, and cultural differences in parenting norms.
Am I Actually Approachable?
Once I recognized what might stop a school from approaching me, the next question was obvious: Am I fostering a relationship that makes it easy for staff to raise concerns?
Of course, professionally, I’m the safeguarding lady—the one who insists no question is too big or small. But had I made it equally clear that this applied to me as a parent?
To remove any doubt, I made intentional choices:
So… Am I a Bad Parent?
That’s not a question parents get to answer, at least not honestly. We’ll probably only find out years from now, sitting with our adult children’s therapist (still not sure if that’s a joke or a guarantee).
What we can do now is assess how we are showing up and make adjustments where needed.
I started by asking myself and my child some very intentional questions. Mine were mostly closed-ended. His were open, focused on choice, voice, connection, and stress. Unsurprisingly, our answers didn’t always align.
Before having the conversations, I made sure the environment felt emotionally safe—sometimes in the car, sometimes over food, sometimes via text. This wasn’t about determining whether I was a “good” or “bad” parent. It was about learning what he needed from me to feel supported.
The results surprised me. He didn’t mind me showing up to games with pom-poms. He wanted shared routines like watching a series together and waiting for each other before the next episode. He appreciated lunches with notes when I traveled, daily phone calls despite time differences, and reconnecting through exercise and spirituality.
Perhaps the hardest shift was stepping back academically. As a former high school counselor, I’d had his four-year plan mapped out since kindergarten. This year, my biggest challenge was staying quiet while he articulated his goals to his counselor. His vision wasn’t mine, but it was still a good plan.
Final Thoughts
Does this mean he’ll never talk about his childhood in therapy? Probably not. But these are changes within my control that center his voice and prioritize connection.
One of my biggest takeaways from the research is this: professional status, financial means, or social capital do not exempt any of us from needing to grow as parents. Once we remove professional pride from parenting, we create space to truly learn what our children need from us and to partner more openly with the professionals who care about them.
We won’t get it right every day. But we can keep trying to be the parents our children need.
References
Bernard, C. A. (2019). Recognizing and addressing child neglect in affluent families. Child & Family Social Work, 24(2), 340–347. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12619
Bernard, C., & Greenwood, T. (2019). ‘We’re giving you the sack’—Social workers’ perspectives of intervening in affluent families when there are concerns about child neglect. British Journal of Social Work, 49, 2266–2282. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcz003
Bernard, C., Greenwood, T., & Henri, T. (2023). A qualitative study of the perspectives of designated safeguarding leads responding to child protection concerns in fee-paying schools. Child Abuse Review, 32(1), e2830. https://doi.org/10.1002/car.2830
Goldman, S. (2025, May 1). Addressing affluent neglect in the lives of third culture kids. Sea Change Mentoring. https://www.seachangementoring.com/news/addressing-affluent-neglect-in-the-lives-of-third-culture-kids
Merton Safeguarding Children Partnership. (n.d.). Neglect strategy: Considering affluent neglect. https://www.mertonscp.org.uk/working-with-children/neglect-strategy/
School Management Plus. (2025, May 1). Affluent neglect: Why every school needs an action plan. https://www.schoolmanagementplus.com/wellbeing-students-staff/affluent-neglect-why-every-school-needs-an-action-plan/
Strauss, M., & Roderick, J. (2022, May). Handling cases of affluent neglect in schools and adverse childhood experiences. Farrer & Co LLP. https://www.farrer.co.uk/news-and-insights/handling-cases-of-affluent-neglect-in-schools-and-adverse-childhood-experiences/
WillisPalmer. (n.d.). Special report: Emotional neglect in children with affluent parents. https://www.willispalmer.com/special-report-emotional-neglect-children-affluent-parents/Tiese Bright is a licensed school counselor and administrator with over two decades of experience supporting children and families.
