Parenting
5 Way to Use
Attachment Strategies for a Calmer Goodbye
Making Tricky Transitions Easier with Attachment Strategies Childhood is filled with transitions. Some transitions are common (like entering Day Care, Kindy or moving house), other transitions are inevitable (e.g., starting school), and some may be unfortunate (such as separations or losing someone important). Irrespective of the type of transition, your child will experience some form of change during their early lifespan that may give rise to normal apprehension, stress, butterflies, worry or anxiety. However, change can equally present a great opportunity for learning, and helping our little ones feel secure as they transition from one place to the next (be that environmentally or emotionally) can also encourage their longer-term resilience.
What can parents do to help? The easiest and most effective method of supporting your child through a tricky transition is by you applying attachment strategies. By using that beautiful, natural and unique attachment between child and primary carer, we can help soothe transition jitters and help our children feel more confident and secure in whatever change they are facing.
What are attachment strategies? Attachment Theory was introduced by the research of John Bowlby (1958), who explored the importance of the physical and emotional connection between babies and their primary caregiver/s, with importance on the lifelong impact of healthy, early attachment. In latter years, Attachment Parenting developed out of this foundation research with varying interpretations on postnatal care. More recently, attachment theory has been integrated into parenting programs such as Circle of Security. On a basic, naturalistic level, attachment simply refers to the foundation relationship between you and your child that they will carry with them for a lifetime. Even when you are not visible to your child, their sense of connectedness to you remains critical to their emotion wellbeing, sense of security, and resilience. Often the trickiest of transitions for your child involves you not being available, so how then can we help our children cope with change, in the absence of our physical presence?
Five Attachment Strategies That Work
Comforters
One of the first tricky transitions a baby will make is learning to sleep without mum after nine months of being rocked to sleep by the rhythm of your movement and the beat of your heart (full disclosure: they will learn to do this eventually!). In the proliferation of baby product merchandise (think: cute bunnies, silken blankies, bamboo muslins, etc.) I think we have lost the original definition and purpose of the security blanket: a transitional object that provides comfort in the absence of the motherchild bond. Be it that they are now commercialised to be impossibly cute, I am a strong advocate for a well-developed relationship between baby and comforter to initially help them learn to self-settle to sleep, and later to self-sooth in day care environments. To facilitate a comforter as an attachment tool, it is commonly recommended for the primary carer to place the item under their shirt for a day (such that baby associates the comforter with your scent) or tickle your baby’s face or palm gently with the comforter while feeding (to pair the association between comforter and nurturance).
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Your Local Families Magazine April / May 2018
Books
There are a number of fantastic books that reinforce carer-child attachment: • ‘The Kissing Hand for Chester Raccoon’ by Audrey Penn • ‘The Invisible String’ by Patrice Karst • ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell • ‘You Have My Heart’ by Corinne Fenton and Robin Cowcher • ‘Hush, Little Possum: An Australian Lullaby’ by P Crumble and Wendy Bink • ‘I Love You All Day Long’ by Francesca Rusackas • ‘When I Miss You’ by Cornelia Spelman • ‘Kiss Kiss’ by Margaret Wild While reading these books (and others) are a great way to explore feelings and provide comfort in preparation for tricky transitions, we need to be mindful that no child has a sufficiently mature theory of mind to take prose and relate it to themselves. Therefore, when you read, make sure