4 Struggles of Life Without Parents

The loving bond between a child and a parent is one of the most beautiful, sacred, and important relationships in the world.

A parent plays an irreplaceable role in the life of a child—influencing physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This impact is felt through all of life, well beyond teenage years and into adulthood. A parent is a role model, care-giver, teacher, nourisher, provider, safe place, and so much more.

But what about the millions of children in the world living as orphans? For these children, it’s likely they’ll face more challenges from an earlier age. Those challenges range from abandonment to abuse to hunger and many other things.

Life for a child living as an orphan is often difficult and painful.

Here are four struggles children living as orphans are likely to face:

1. Parents significantly impact a child’s communication skills. Children living without loving parents often experience more difficulty expressing their needs and emotions.
2. Loving families provide children with a sense of security and stability. Children living as orphans often lack both of these vital things, which can cause unique developmental challenges and trauma that may take a lifetime to work through.
3. Parents help nurture and support their children, but children living as orphans do not have this secure presence. Often times, these children struggle to stay healthy and nourished because of a lack of resources.
4. Students with involved parents tend to earn higher grades and have more opportunities to develop needed social skills, while children without parents will have to work much harder to achieve the same things.

For both children with parents and those without, the unconditional love of the Father is unending. God sees them, hears them, and knows the desires of their heart. Every child everywhere is deeply loved by God, and nothing can ever change that.

God’s love for children living as orphans means something for us. It means that we must step into their need and do whatever we can to help every child come to know the love and protection of a family.

It means we must ask what God has called us to do, and then do that with all of our might.

The reality of a child living without parents is part of our broken world, but we believe every child needs to know the love of a family.

What will you do to help children living as orphans?