Attachment and Children’s Mental Health

“Each stage in a child’s life makes unique demands on the caregiver, and each stage brings with it a set of specific developmental needs and vulnerabilities. Because children are a part of a changing and developing system that includes their parents, caregivers, community members, extended families, and so on, they get into increasingly complex experiential realms as they grow and mature, and each of their reactions to a new experience is informed by those that have come before. For a young child whose attachments to significant adults are in a crucial stage of development, an abusive experience will have far different effects on him or her, and on the family, than will a similar incident when the child is ten or a teenager or a young adult.” From The First Three Years and Beyond: Brain Development and Social Policy, 2002.

Attachment is important. It is the base upon which the emotional health, social relationships, and one’s worldview are built. The ability to trust and form relationships will affect the emotional health, security, and safety of the child, as well as the child’s development and future relationships. Normal attachment develops during the child’s first two years of life. Problems with the parent-child relationship during this time, or breaks in the consistent caregiver-child relationship, prevent attachment from developing normally. A wide range of attachment problems may result in varying degrees of emotional disturbance in the child. The severity of this attachment disorder seems to result from the number of breaks in the bonding cycle and the extent of the child’s emotional vulnerability and their resiliency. Therefore, interventions that attempt to promote high-quality caregiver-child relations and secure attachment patterns are effective in enhancing the resiliency of vulnerable children. Because attachment lies at the root of many emotional and mental disturbances, it is important to understand its significance.

Resilency, Risk Factors, and Attachment

Resilience: An individual’s competence and successful adaptation, or “bounce back,” following exposure to significant adversity and stressful life events. Vulnerability is the susceptibility to negative developmental outcomes under high-risk conditions.

Risk and Protective Factors: Conditions that increase (risk factors) or decrease (protective factors) the likelihood that an individual or a family will later develop problems. Studies of resiliency in children have consistently found the most basic and important protective factor is a history of a caregiver-child attachment.

A child’s emotional vulnerability can be affected by a variety of factors including genetic factors; prenatal development, including maternal drinking and drug abuse; prenatal nutrition and stress; Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effect; temperament; and birth parent history of mental illness, such as schizophrenia or manic depressive illness. If an infant’s needs are not met consistently in a loving, nurturing way, attachment will not occur normally.

The attachment-disordered child does whatever she feels like, with no regard for others. She is unable to feel remorse for wrongdoing, mainly because she is unable to internalize right and wrong. This child may be savvy enough to speak knowledgeably about standards and values, but cannot truly understand or believe what she is saying. The child may tell you that something is wrong, but that will not stop her from doing it.

Foster or adoptive parents need support in preparing for and dealing with attachment issues. For many children, the trauma causing this disorder occurred long before their involvement with foster or adoptive parents. The parents also need to know and understand that the child’s behavior is not caused from their parenting, but from past traumas. From this base, new parenting interventions can be designed from a cooperative relationship to fit a child with special needs. While not all children in foster care or those who are adopted develop this disorder, parents need to be aware of this possibility.The child also needs to understand what force is driving his or her feelings and controlling the child’s behavior.

http://www.cwresource.org/hotTopics/mentalHealth1/attachment .htm

     If there's a causlity between ADHD, and an immature reflex which was supposed to develop from crawling, could parents/caregivers inadvertantly foster ADHD in children by teaching/encouraging a child to walk too soon?

     Could the cheerful encouragement of parents cause an ADHD prone child to develop a egocentric charecter in their psychological makeup, therefore an "it's all about me" attitude to develop causing social anxiety when confronted with a classroom of children?Only one caregiver for a large number of children?