Helping children to attach to parents |
Closeness
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Offering closeness when tired, hurt, ill, and after tantrums, even if not sought |
Discouraging closeness with others than immediate family |
| Opportunities to communicate—shared one-to-one activities |
| Teaching “language” (verbal and non-verbal) of closeness |
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Safety (emotional and physical)
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| Reducing the likelihood of failure |
| Reducing competition for attention—allowing one-to-one time |
| Preparation, explanation, routine, etc to reduce anxiety |
| Avoiding circumstances likely to result in difficult behaviour |
| Behaviour management: establishing control; clear boundaries; allowing success |
| Calming strategies—touch, massage, music, etc; anxiety management techniques |
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Helping parents to attach to children |
Attunement
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Helping parents to “see through the child’s eyes” and understand behaviour |
Reducing fear/stress/fatigue
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| Ensuring that expectations for attachment are realistic |
| Normality of adoptive parents attaching at different rates |
| Normality of attaching more rapidly to one child than another |
| Ensuring adequate support in the early stages of placement |
| Acknowledgement of the difficulty of parenting without attachment |
| Addressing guilt, fear, self-doubt; identifying signs of progress |
| Support for post-placement depression |
| Respite—informal or formal; encouraging self-care |
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Secondary consequences/vicious circles | Understanding body signals—talking re body sensations—hunger, satiety, etc |
Understanding emotions
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Parental attunement to the child’s feelings and mood, not behaviour |
Clear/exaggerated verbal and non-verbal responses to the child’s feelings—through touch, facial expression, gesture, tone of voice, etc |
| Teaching words for feelings; discussion of feelings; use of role play, etc |
| Teaching reading of body language, behaviour, facial expression, etc |
| Peer relationships—active support of friendships; teaching cooperation, social skills, etc |
| Stranger safety—education through discussion, books, play, etc |
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Self-esteem
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| Identification and development of strengths; ensuring success; focusing on positives |
| Life story work to reduce guilt, shame, sense of responsibility for circumstances, etc |
| Temper control problems—multiprofessional approach addressing causes and symptoms |
| ADHD—low threshold for treatment, especially if interfering with mutual attachment |
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Development/education
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| Detailed assessment |
| Low threshold for intervention because of risk of vicious circles |
| Ensuring teachers’ understanding of the implications of attachment problems |
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Specialised psychological services | Task definition—purpose, choice of resource, mode of delivery and timing of services focused on the priority of securing attachment |
Service structure—allowing rapidity of response, to address crises |
Specific mental health problems
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| Identification and treatment of depression, obsessional-compulsive disorder, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc |
| “Attachment therapy”—e.g. for avoidance of or ambivalence to closeness, difficulties with trust and control, etc, when simple strategies are insufficiently effective |