The phrase “child abuse and neglect” is often used as a substitute for a trauma model. Unfortunately, when the subject of Neglect comes up, its’ usual occurrence is in the phrase “child abuse and Neglect”. The almost exclusive reference to Neglect using this “combination model” of child trauma, yields results that are almost exclusively about abuse, and have little or nothing specific to Neglect. Neglect, (or ‘that which didn't happen’) is rarely mentioned because it's odd for people to talk about something that didn't happen. This perpetuates the effects of neglect.

The Doing Without series was created with the idea that, the ‘cause and effect’ modeling skills from the field of automated control systems, when paired with counseling or peer sharing, can provide a better model of truth for the past and the future. By including the basic categories of inputs and outputs that affected a child's life, we can make a model that can better address the needs that adults have, resulting from parenting that never happened.