Parents who have a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder spend a minimum of six months to a year healing the heart of their wounded child. Great emphasis is placed on structure, nurturing, trust-building, and bonding.
Listed below are a few of the key points used in the healing process.
Bonding with Your Child
“As the parent of such a child, you may fall down a thousand times and feel like giving up. It is important to remember that inside, parents are wired for success, not failure… falling down should be nothing new to you. It is not different from when you were a small child and decided to learn how to walk. Though you stumbled and fell flat on your face many times, and you cried, you didn’t stay there on the ground. If someone didn’t help you up you got up yourself and tried again, and again, until the goal was reached. It happened one step at a time.” (High Risk, 1987)
Keys to Bonding with a Child suffering from RAD
- Warm, loving eye contact, soft and full of smiles
- Loving touch, such as holding, hugging, cuddling, massages
- Movement, such as rocking, bouncing, or dancing together
- Smiles from your eyes
- Sweet milk sugar, such as caramels, ice cream, or pudding
Other Factors for Bonding
- Pizzazz – lots of it! Pizzazz behaviours that you want your child to repeat. Your child craves excitement, and giving it in a positive way using pizzazz will help them focus on positive experiences rather than negative experiences.
- Parent interactions that encourage reciprocity on the parents’ terms, such as singing together, reciting nursery rhymes, or playing imitation games where your child follows the parent’s lead. Therapeutic parents need to be strong leaders and make the activity choices until your child is strong enough to handle it.
- Children working together with parents in a fun way, engaging in activities that your child completes on the parents’ terms to enable your child to give to the family.
- Strong Parents use action, not anger! Prevent manipulation between adults so your child can feel safe and learn to trust.
- Have continuity with your child’s past. Life books are a great way to do this! Begin with your child’s birth and continue to the present.
- Real parents are forgiving of birth parents. If the real parents think of the birth or previous parents as “trash” or “no good,” your child will think they themselves are that way, too.
Remember:
- Work from your head, not your heart
- Be consistent with rules and expectations, varying the consequences
- Stay focused on the goal: A loving, healthy child and a happy home
- Underneath the negative, chaotic behaviour is a hurting child. That’s the one you are fighting for (not with!) That’s the one you snuggle, hold, and love forever.
Attachment helps a child to:
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- attain his full intellectual potential
- sort out what he perceives
- think logically
- develop a conscience
- become self-reliant
- cope with stress and frustration
- handle fear and worry
- develop future relationships
- reduce jealousy (Fahlberg, 1979)
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“Attachment is the most critical thing that happens in infancy other than meeting the baby’s physical needs. Too much emphasis cannot be placed on this point.” (High Risk, 1987)
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” Anne Frank