Coordinating Your Dance, Part 2

by Alyssa Hasson, MAMFT

Up to this point, this series has focused on understanding the factors within your child and his experience that can impede attachment. Now it’s time to evaluate the part that you, as parents, play in the system of attachment.

Parents, you are one of the two parties involved in the attachment cycle (the other party is your child). This means that you play a vital role in the attachment process. Just as your child does, you have factors within yourself that can facilitate or hinder attachment. Your own attachment style, which was established when you were a young child, affects the ways in which you interact with and parent your children. For this reason, it is important to be open to evaluating your attachment style, which includes a look back at how you were parented.

Self-reflection and openness to change are important as you seek to facilitate attachment with your adopted child. It’s easy to look to a child’s history as the reason for difficulty attaching and much harder to admit that our own tendencies, beliefs, and responses play a part. It is folly to expect healthy attachment with your child if you struggle with attachment issues yourself. In fact, Purvis, Cross, & Sunshine, authors of The Connected Child note:

All parents tend to “pass down” their own attachment style to their baby… In one research study, more than 70 percent of the participants had the same attachment style as their mother and grandmother. Because of this effect, it is unlikely that two insecurely attached adoptive parents will be able to help an attachment-disordered child heal and develop into a securely attached family member (p. 223).

This quote, and the research study it mentions, highlights the importance of the parent’s emotional/mental health. Parents tend to model for their children what they know, and attachment style is no different.

As you openly reflect about the role that you play in the attachment cycle and your own attachment cycle, remember the three roles of an attachment figure: provider, protector, and guide. Consider how seeking professional support and feedback about your own attachment style can work to strengthen these three roles as you interact with your child.

Coordinating Your Dance

by Alyssa Hasson, MAMFT

Here are some tips for building attachment with your adopted child. Remember that an attachment figure acts as a protector, provider, and guide. The tips below are designed with those roles in mind. See if you can identify which role(s) are being reinforced in each. In addition, it is important to evaluate the manner in which you approach these roles. No one wants a guide who is harsh, a provider who is resentful, or a protector who is dismissive. Seek to be loving and compassionately curious as you interact with your child.

• Create predictable routines throughout your day, especially for meal time, bed time, and wake time. Incorporate several relaxing, relationship building activities into the nighttime routine, like reading and singing together.

• Respect your child’s physical boundaries. For children who are verbal, ask permission before initiating physical contact, like hugging or kissing.

• Advocate for your child. This means speaking for your child when he is not able to voice his own needs. Examples include asking family members to respect your child’s physical boundaries, speaking with your child’s school to ensure he is receiving special education (for learning difficulties or giftedness), and pursuing professional services (medical or mental health) as needed.

• Provide a place in your home for your child to decompress when emotions or experiences become overwhelming.

• Communicate curiosity, rather than frustration, about your child’s choices and preferences. Ask questions such as “What helped you to choose that?” or “What do you like best about that?”

• Spend time playing with your child. Allow your child to lead and direct the play.

Some parents will have an easier time building attachment with their child than other parents will. Some parents will find that even employing attachment building activities, such as the above, is difficult for them. Why do some parents have more difficulty than others? The child’s early experiences and brain biology most certainly come into play here. But another person’s early experiences and brain biology influence the equation, too. That’s right, parents, your attachment style influences your ability to connect with and attach to your child (and to your spouse, too, but that’s a different post). More on this next time.

Sign of Attachment Issues

by Alyssa Hasson, MAMFT

In this post we’re going to shift from the internal happenings of the brain to the external symptoms that are associated with attachment disorders. If you suspect that your child has an attachment issue, you can informally assess him by examining the risk factors in his history as well as the behaviors he exhibits.

First, evaluate your child’s early background. By early background, I mean from birth to approximately age 5. Some children can be considered more “at risk” for having difficulty with attachment. This higher risk category includes children who have experienced significant change in their early lives, like those who have lived in foster homes or orphanages, those who have experienced early abuse and neglect, and/or those who have experienced a prolonged separation from their caregiver.

Second, evaluate your child’s behaviors. The list below includes behaviors that are characteristic of children with attachment issues.

• Lying and stealing
• Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers
• Power struggles at home
• Resistant to being comforted
• Poor eye contact, except when lying
• Low frustration/tolerance levels
• Excessively inhibited
• Hypervigilance
• Difficulty following verbal instructions
• Cruel behaviors toward self, others, & pets

The manifestation of attachment issues can vary from child to child, and the presence of the above behaviors does not guarantee that a child has attachment issues. Some children with attachment difficulties are diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD).

It is not uncommon for children with attachment issues to receive diagnoses other than RAD, such as ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and/or conduct disorder. Many of the behaviors associated with these other diagnoses (like inattention, impulsivity, aggressive or cruel behaviors, stealing, defiance) are also present in a child with attachment issues. Recall that protective states are triggered by any element (like sights, sounds, smells, feelings) that is similar to that which occurred during the trauma. During these times, behaviors may appear willfully defiant, hyperactive, or belligerent; however, they are actually protective in nature. This differentiation is important in order to receive correct diagnosis and treatment.

If you believe that your child has difficulty with attachment, seek help earlier rather than later. Find a therapist who will work both with your child to help heal the wounds of early trauma as well as with your family to help build attachment and provide support. 

The Connection: Part II

by Alyssa Hasson, MAMFT

In the last post, we talked about how attachment is created by experience. While it is critically important to understand the cycle through which healthy attachment is built, it is equally important to understand what happens when the attachment cycle fails.

Recall that the attachment cycle requires two parties: 1) the child and 2) a consistently available, appropriately responding caregiver. When such a caregiver is not present, the child is alone to handle his need and return his body to an unstressed state. This is very difficult for children since their brains are not developed enough to accomplish these tasks. In order to address these needs, the child’s brain makes a shift from growing and developing to focusing on survival. In The Connected Child, the authors (Purvis, Cross, & Sunshine) note:

If a child feels threatened, hungry, or tired, her primitive brain jumps in and takes over. Physically located in areas of the brain such as the amygdala, this primitive brain constantly monitors basic survival needs and behaves like a guard on patrol. When the primitive brain is on duty, more advanced areas of the brain- particularly those that handle higher learning, reasoning, and logic, get shut down (p. 50).

Children whose circumstances dictate that their primitive brains are frequently engaged may have cognitive, emotional, and social delays as a result of their higher level brain functions shutting down to focus on survival.

Additionally, it is important to think about the learning that is taking place in the brain of a child whose primitive brain is often engaged. Daniel Siegel, author of Parenting from the Inside Out, writes:

Science has shown that the brain, even in young infants, is quite capable of making generalizations, or mental models, from repeated experiences. … Mental models serve as a kind of funnel through which information is filtered, as lenses that help us anticipate the future and therefore prepare our minds for action. (p. 51-52, emphasis mine).

How do these lenses affect your interactions with your adoptive child? Situations that resemble the previous trauma in any way can quickly cause a shift into a protective, primitive state. Behaviors during these times may appear willfully disobedient, hyperactive, or belligerent, and are oftentimes misunderstood as such, when in fact the child is simply protecting himself like he’s used to doing.

More next time on behaviors often associated with attachment issues.