“Affluent neglect” is a problem common to “many private international schools”. It has been on the radar of the 100-plus schools that make up the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (Fobisia) for a number of years, says Vanita Uppal.

Uppal, who is Fobisia chair and director of The British School New Delhi, believes the problem is becoming more widely understood because of the increasing emphasis on supporting pupils’ mental health post-Covid.

She also believes that the rise of the “aspirational middle class” in emerging economies has led to affluent neglect becoming an increasing issue for international schools in her part of the world.

“They want to go on nice holidays, they want to live in nice homes, so they are working harder, they are earning more,” Uppal says. “They are able to provide - quote, unquote - ‘more than they ever had as a child’.

“But in that race what they are forgetting is that although they didn’t have too much, they grew up as happy, secure, confident individuals.”

Identifying affluent neglect

Affluent neglect - the neglect that can be experienced by children in wealthy families - can be difficult for school staff to spot and to deal with. A common response from parents, Uppal says, is denial and hostility.

Uppal contrasts affluent neglect with physical neglect, when a teacher can see that a child is coming to school hungry or in a uniform that has not been washed.

Children who suffer from affluent neglect are being cared for, Uppal explains, but probably by paid carers, with their parents unavailable both physically and emotionally.

“Very often mum and dad have very successful careers,” she says. “They’re travelling a lot. The children are not wanting for anything material. They’ll be picked up from school on time. Their uniform will be washed. They’ll have lovely lunches packed for them. They will have chauffeurs who are driving them where they have to go - for this lesson, on that play date - but the nurturing parent is not visible.

“And this becomes explicit when you see some behaviours in school.”

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At the most extreme end of the spectrum this behaviour can involve substance misuse, but the problem can also manifest itself in rebellious behaviour; not listening to instruction, not coping well with authority, relationship issues with peers and a lack of empathy.

“They lack empathy in their interactions with others because they are not receiving that empathy,” says Uppal.

Attendance can also suffer because children might bully paid carers into allowing them to take time off.

When alcohol and drugs are the symptom it is “usually a cry for help” - and for attention, says Uppal. Broaching this with parents, however, is fraught with difficulty.

“Very often you get hostility in response - denial and hostility from the parent.”

So how should schools respond?

Professor Claudia Bernard, of Goldsmiths, University of London, is often credited with first shining the spotlight on affluent neglect.

In 2018 she published research looking at how social workers engage neglectful parents from affluent backgrounds. Bernard found that emotional neglect was the most common type of abuse in affluent families, but it was hard to evidence and, subsequently, to intervene on.

Parents would try “to minimise the significance of emotional neglect” and were “more likely to use legal advocates or the complaints procedures to challenge social workers”.

Social workers had to have “a degree of confidence to not be deterred by the threats of complaints” but also, crucially, they needed “supportive managers behind them”.

The need for training on affluent neglect

Although Bernard’s work focused on the skills that social workers needed for dealing with the issue, her findings also have relevance for schools. She highlighted the need for training and raising awareness, as well as “supportive managers and good supervision”.

When international school leader James Worland, who is now secondary principal at Alice Smith School, Kuala Lumpur, spoke to Tes in 2023 about affluent neglect, he stressed the importance of “a whole-school approach” to safeguarding.

He emphasised the need to have a common understanding of “appropriate processes and procedures to ensure matters are handled correctly”, with “frequent training and constant safeguarding awareness”.

A “deeper awareness and understanding of affluent neglect” is also what Colin Bell advocates. Bell is the chief executive of the Council of British International Schools (Cobis), which represents more than 400 schools and organisations globally. He says there are many examples of good practice in dealing with affluent neglect but “awareness certainly needs to be heightened”.

Cobis facilitates training to support schools, he says. One goal of these programmes is to help schools to understand how to manage incidents, including how to assert professional authority with affluent parents.

Cobis courses are run with the Safeguarding Alliance. Founder Emily Konstantas sums up five ways schools can address affluent neglect, including:

• Updating safeguarding policies to include affluent neglect explicitly
• Introducing parent contracts to clarify expectations and emphasise the importance of emotional and financial support
• Providing training for staff
• Fostering an environment where staff watch for signs of affluent neglect
• Identifying the lifestyle factors or family circumstances that may make some students more vulnerable

Konstantas says that children who lack genuine emotional support from parents can be high achievers, but this is often “paired with inner struggles”. Indicators can include “high stress, anxiety, perfectionism or an excessive need for validation”. She adds: “Teachers and counsellors might observe these children as highly competitive, withdrawn or even defiant.”

Another study, this time focusing on safeguarding in three International Baccalaureate (IB) schools, was published in September 2023 and identified affluent neglect as an emerging issue.

One problem was schools phoning parents to inform them that their child was sick, only to “realise nobody’s home”, perhaps because both parents were travelling abroad. Parents who worked for NGOs or other organisations that require travel sometimes left children with nannies or housekeepers “for extended periods”, while there was an issue with families who moved every two years for work in that documented safeguarding and child-protection concerns could “get lost”.

The IB study advises more generally that students can be reluctant to go to a school counsellor for various reasons, so schools should proactively engage with students to understand barriers to reporting problems.

“If students are not reporting harm, it is difficult for schools to notice and respond to it,” the IB paper advises.

Other papers with a focus on affluent neglect urge schools to “properly understand their reporting duties and how to escalate cases where they consider that a child is not getting the right help”, and to get better at seeking information as part of the admissions process.

Of course, a big challenge for international schools - pointed out by one principal in the IB study - is that if parents refuse to see the problem around affluent neglect, “they can just pull their child and leave”.

‘The penny drops’ in sessions with parents

Uppal advocates being proactive and taking a two-pronged approach: ensuring that teachers know their pupils well, including whether they have adults at home who support them; and ensuring that parents are aware of the crucial role they play in their children’s lives.

Her school now runs sessions for parents where they are presented with different scenarios - how they would cope, for example, if their child suddenly became withdrawn. Uppal has seen “the penny drop” with parents suddenly becoming alert to potential issues.

During open days at the school designed to allow parents and children to play together, paid carers such as nannies are banned from attending in place of family members. There are also times when parents’ attendance is mandatory, such as in parent-teacher meetings.

However, Uppal stresses that her own school is “a close-knit community” and that amicable relationships with families are vital if schools want to get good outcomes for children.

She says the solution lies “through persuasion, through dialogue, through role modelling”, and in addressing any “lack of understanding of what being a parent means”.

As Uppal puts it: “It’s usually not that parents are ill-intentioned or that they don’t want to parent well -but it is a consequence of their lifestyle and what they think they need to do to be the best parents in the world.”

Emma Seith is a senior reporter at Tes. She tweets @ Emma_Seith