Strategies for Schools:
10 Not-So-Easy Steps to Working with Children with Attachment Problems
Jennifer Wilgocki, MS, LCSW James G. Van Den Brandt, ACSW, LCSW
And adapted materials from Child Trauma Clinic
Baylor College of Medicine Texas Medical Center, Houston, TX
November 2005
1. Stay Positive:
Find something you honestly and genuinely like about the child, no matter how small the trait or characteristic.
Talk to colleagues/team members about what you like about the child. Remind yourself daily. Find new likable traits as time goes by. Solicit from team members what they like about the child and remind them when the going gets tough.
Communicate the good you see in the child to"the child. Be firm but gentle and caring with them. In many ways you are providing replacement experiences that should have taken place during infancy-but you are doing them when their brains are harder to modify and change. They will need even more nurturing experiences to help develop healthy attachments and counter their negative working model.
Communicate hope.
2. Use AFFECT as a primary tool:
Attachment disturbed children need an abundance of PRAISE when they've done something well, and an abundance of DISPASSION when they've misbehaved.
Praise means: high affect
animated body, voice, face
attend to the simplest positive or neutral
behaviors and praise them 6: 1 ratio of praise to correction praise for doing
praise for being
Dispassion means: few words
soft voice
matter-of-fact tone of voice low affect
tolerating your own reaction and not letting it bleed through
calm body, calm voice, calm face repetition if necessary
3. Ask yourself, "What function does the behavior serve?"
The more you can learn about attachment problems and normal development, the more you will be able to develop useful behavioral and social interventions.
When you perceive a child to be cool, aloof, or apathetic, for example, do not immediately conclude that this is a rebuff, lack of concern, or general emotional disengagement. Instead, it may be a predictable result of the child's defensive effort to deactivate the attachment system and gain control over painful emotions.
Likewise, a child's angry, oppositional behavior with peers or teachers may be a reaction to a perceived threat to safety or perhaps a displacement of anger about the primary attachment figure. The child could be expressing the negative working model or acting out what they can't put in to words.
4. Consider the difference between the child's emotional and chronological age·:
Attachment disturbed children are always emotionally and socially delayed. Whenever they are frustrated and fearful they tend to regress. They may also engage in reenactments. These are the times to avoid telling them to "act their age." If they are tearful, frustrated, overwhelmed, and responding like a two-year old, parent them as if they were that age. This is not the time to use complex verbal arguments about the consequences of inamoriate behavior.
5. Be consistent, predictable, and repetitive:
Attachment disturbed children are extremely sensitive to changes in schedules, transitions, surprises, chaotic social situations, changes in a teacher/substitute, and in general any new situation. Birthday parties, sleepovers, holidays, family trips, the start and end of school year, CHANGES IN FOSTER HOME PLACEMENT, etc. can all be disorganizing for them.
Be "boringly predictable." Foreshadow changes and transitions many days and weeks ahead of time. Walk them to and through new situations, class assignments, etc.
Other children, by contrast, may become anxious with too much foreshadowing, for example,
anxiously anticipating an upcoming field trip. The child's anxiety may result in behavioral problems that result in a loss of the privilege. Tune in to each child's comfort zone about foreshadowing and modify your plan accordingly.
6. Model and teach appropriate social behaviors:
Attachment disturbed children do not know how to interact with adults or other children well. Model positive behaviors yourself and realize they are watching you all of the time for how you will respond to different situations. Become a play by play announcer or coach helping them with each step of the required task. They will see, hear, and imitate your coaching.
Do not assume they know how to play.
Physical contact is problematic with attachment disturbed children. They don't know when to hug, how close to stand, when to establish or break eye contact, what are appropriate contexts to pick their nose, touch their genitals, or do grooming behaviors. They often initiate physical contact with strangers, which adults can interpret as affectionate ... it is not. Gently guide the child on how to interact differently and address the every time it occurs.
7. Listen to and talk with them:
It is important that you help the child increase the verbalization of the negative working model when you suspect it is operating. Out of this hypothesis you might pose a wondering question, e.g., "I wonder if you feel sad that Billy doesn't want to play with you."
It is also important to foster communication of needs.
One of the most important and pleasurable things to do is just stop, sit, listen, and play, which is hard when you are a teacher. When you are quiet and interactive with them you find that they will begin to show you and tell you about what is really inside them. Yet as simple as the sounds, it is one of the most difficult things for adults to do-to stop, to make time before your next task and really relax in the moment with a child. These children will sense that you are there just for them. They will feel how· you care (even if they don't show it).
8. Teach feelings:
All feeling are okay to feel
Teach healthy ways to act when having feelings
Explore how other people may feel and how they show their feelings (development of empathy)
When you sense that the child is clearly feeling something, wonder out loud about the
feelings: "I wonder if you're feeling sad that your Mom didn't come to your visit" or "I wonder if you feel angry when I say no."
Tolerate feelings and encourage the verbal expression of them. Encourage use of words and the verbalization of the negative internal working model. ..
9. Have realistic expectations:
Attachment disturbed children have so much to overcome. For some, they will not overcome all of their problems. Others will make great strides. Keep in mind that they have been robbed of some, but not all, of their potential.
Progress will be slow. The slow progress can be frustrating and many teachers will feel inadequate because all of the time and effort they spend with their child may not seem to be having any effect. It does! Don't be hard on yourself. It is normal to feel swamped and overwhelmed by a child who has an attachment problem.
Keep in mind that you are planting seeds. Remember to use your "magnifying glass" and "measuring spoons: to gauge progress.
Having realistic expectations also means holding the child accountable for problematic behavior. Create a consequence according to attachment theory insights.
Take time to give consequences if you need it. Only give consequences that are enforceable.
10. Take care of yourself:
This should probably be step #1.
You cannot provide the consistent, predictable, enriching, and nurturing care a child needs if you are depleted. You will not be able to help if you are exhausted, depressed, angry, overwhelmed, or resentful.
Rest. Get support. Use the team, get help, don't go it alone with these kids. Nurture your own primary relationships with you'r partner, own children, family, and friends.
Spend time with securely attached kids - remind yourself what kids are capable of and what is possible at different developmental stages.
Remember to play and find joy in the world.