The Strengthening Families Through Early Care and Education
The Strengthening Families Through Early Care and Education research project has identified exemplary family-support programs that show that staff in child care centers and other early education programs can make a difference. Using a “pro- tective factors” framework, the project documents how exemplary programs reduce abuse and neglect. The idea is that programs can intentionally strengthen families while serving their children. One of the protective factors occurs when staff works to build trusting relationships with parents and offers support to them when they are go- ing through difficult periods. That kind of relationship, which can be a type of attach- ment, is different from what staff provides to children. The website for the Center for the Study of Social Policy has more information on the protective factors framework.
How Secondary Attachments Occur There are many different ways of getting attached to infants and older children, de- pending on the individual, the culture, and the situation. Attachment in families is a basic kind of attachment. It is important for those professionals working with chil- dren and families to support attachment of child to family and vice versa. When in- fants started coming into child care in large numbers, great concern for attachment arose. What happens to the attachment of babies who spend more of their waking hours outside the home with people other than their family? One of those concerned is J. R. Lally (1995, 2013). He has been advocating for a number of years for policies, such as small groups, primary caregivers, and continuity of care, to help infants and toddlers gain a sense of trust while not with their families. When those policies are in place and caregivers are well trained, the attachment to family remains strong and attachment to caregivers grows. Attachment doesn’t switch from family to caregiver, but rather the attachment to caregiver becomes a secondary kind of attachment (Lally, 1995, 2013). Lally and Peter Mangione’s Program for Infant-Toddler Caregivers (PITC) has been training infant-toddler program administrators and staff since 1990 about the importance of secondary attachments in out-of-home care. Further, the PITC training focuses on just how to create those attachments. The worries about at- tachment issues in babies when both parents work outside the home have lessened today as evidenced by the growing numbers of families successfully using infant- toddler care.
One of the pioneers in attachment in group care was Emmi Pikler, the Hungar- ian pediatrician mentioned earlier who did many years of attachment research on children zero to three years of age in what is now called The Pikler Institute, directed today by Pikler’s daughter, Anna Tardos. Anyone who works with infants and toddlers in groups and individually can learn much from Pikler’s research. One of Pikler’s find- ings was how important it is to train the staff very carefully in exactly how and to what extent to promote attachment. Pikler’s ideas about attachment are useful today
Watch this video to hear Dr. Bruce Perry and others talks about attachment, trauma, and resiliency. How does high quality caregiving impact brain development?
www.youtube.com /watch?v=RYj7YYHmbQs
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to infant care teachers as well. She stressed in her training that this was a special kind of attachment—one that gave children enough security to develop well and function optimally, but was not so strong an attachment that moving into an adop- tive family—or back to their own—would devastate the children when the ties with the caregiver in the Institute were cut (David & Appell, 2001). The Pikler website has information about training that promotes respectful care of infants and toddlers. To- day in child care we look at secondary attachment to caregivers as similar to, but not exactly like, what Pikler advocated. However, the means to both are similar.
Attachment, according to Pikler, grew during the one-on-one times when the pri- mary caregiver was able to be intimate and uninterrupted with her primary children. Those times come about during the essential activities of daily living, such as feed- ing, diapering, dressing, bathing, and grooming.
Becoming attached to someone else’s baby is delicate business. Earlier I said that as a professional you may be the protective factor in a child’s life. You may be the one that makes a difference. That’s a heady thought and needs some serious consideration. Some people who go into social work or early care and education, teaching, or other related professions have a tendency to want to rescue children from their parents. This is a stage many pass through. It is important to recognize those tendencies in yourself and set them aside. If you look down on parents, you can’t support them, and it’s your job to be supportive. Watch out that you don’t find yourself in competition with the family for the child’s affection. Be professional at all times, but realize that professional in this profession means warm and caring. Be close and attentive, but also be aware of keeping an optimum distance in your attachment to a child. Optimal closeness should be the parents’ goal, not yours. The child’s attachment to the family is and should be a lot closer than your attachment to the child. The child’s past, present, and future are with the family, not with you. Your attachment is important, but it’s also temporary. If it is too strong, both you and the child will suffer when you separate, as you are bound to do eventually.
Attachment Behaviors Attachment can be observed in adults and babies alike. There are certain sets of behaviors that indicate attachment is forming or is already fully established. We’ll look first at parent behaviors and second at infant behaviors. Some parents show signs of attachment right away. They’re smitten with their babies. They feel close to their offspring. They find parenting pleasurable—even the hard and frustrating parts. One mother recalls how her whole life changed when her first baby was born. Sud- denly she became important to someone. Her baby depended on her. She had a new interest in world news because it seemed important to make the world a safe place for her baby to grow up in (Gonzalez-Mena, 1995). Not all parents go through such a transformative process, but some do.
Some cultural rituals are related to attachment. Giving a name to the baby and calling him or her by that name are ways of acknowledging the child as an individual. Buying possessions for the new baby is also a way of recognizing individuality and personhood. These are so expected that they don’t seem to relate to attachment, but when they don’t occur, it can be a sign that something is wrong with the attachment. Be careful, though, about judging across cultures. Attachment behaviors may look quite different.
Be professional at all times, but realize that professional in this profession means warm and caring.
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Signs of Attachment in Infants When considering signs of attachment in infants, it’s important to understand that babies take longer to show signs that they are becoming attached, although careful research shows that signs exist from birth. Research discovered a long time ago that babies just a few hours old can distinguish their mother’s smell and her voice, for example (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980). Before long, babies begin to act differently around their primary caregiver (who may or may not be the mother). They may be more animated, less fussy, or more interested and alert.
Eventually some babies begin to show distress when someone they don’t know arrives in their field of vision. The distress may accelerate if the stranger approaches. This stranger anxiety shows that the baby can distinguish between the person(s) he or she is attached to and others.
However, some babies never show stranger anxiety, not because they are not attached but because they have had a secure and trusting life with multiple caregiv- ers (either at home or in child care). If babies skip this milestone, some parents and even some experts become distressed because they think it shows lack of attach- ment. That’s not necessarily true.
For some babies, the next milestone is separation anxiety, as the baby protests at being away from the caregiver. (More about this subject appears in the next chapter.)
Attachment behaviors can be seen in situations involving both stranger anxiety and separation anxiety—as the baby looks or moves toward the primary caregiver for comfort and reassurance. Clinging, cry- ing, fussing, whining, and following are all attachment behaviors that can show the emotional bond between the child and someone else. Al- though they are indicators of attachment, an absence of these behaviors does not necessarily signal a lack of attachment in children with mul- tiple caregivers.
obSTAcleS To ATTAcHmenT You need to know about these obstacles to attachment so you won’t judge parents who don’t seem as attached as other parents do. Here are some ways to support parents who need help to increase attachment: Make parents aware of their child’s qualities and uniqueness. Encourage them to observe and to ask about what they see. Delicately point out any positive qualities that they may miss. This may be especially important if the baby’s temperament and the par- ent’s temperament aren’t a good match. There will be more about temperament in the next section.
As mentioned before, stay out of any sort of competition with parents. Don’t set yourself up as the expert who’s good at working with children—especially their child. When a child is acting out in front of the parent, avoid saying things like, “He only acts like that when you’re here. He’s fine with me.”
Optimum attachment often starts before the baby is born, continues after de- livery when the baby and family “bond,” and then follows a continuous progression from there (Lieberman & Zeanah, 1995). Many families don’t start with optimum at- tachment. What can get in the way? The following are some reasons parents may not feel an emotional connection to their baby before he or she is born:
Check Your Understanding 2.2
Click here to check your understanding of the development of attachment and trust.
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◆◆ They may be unhappy about the pregnancy or with each other, and those feelings may influence their feelings for the baby.
◆◆ The father may not be in a relation- ship with the mother—so any feel- ing for the unborn baby on his part will necessarily be “long distance.”
◆◆ Even for the mother, the reality of the unborn baby may be fuzzy. It’s hard to love someone you can’t see or touch or interact with.
Then, at birth, the time may still not be right. The birth itself may not be a pleasant experience, and that unpleas- antness can carry over into the period after. Or the birth may be complicated. If the baby or the mother is in any kind of physical distress, medical procedures may take precedence over time alone to “bond” together. For one reason or another, baby and parents often miss out on the initial bonding period. Even if it is arranged so that parents and baby can spend the first hour or so together, there may be worries or disappointments that cast an emotional overlay over the bonding process and prevent the magical happy moment from occurring.
Adoption can present another obstacle to bonding at birth and early attach- ment. The adoptive parents may not have been a part of the birth or may not have had a period together immediately afterward.
Attachment can proceed very well in spite of all these obstacles, as long as the relationship grows and flourishes, preferably in the first year—the earlier the better. Attachment, the process of creating a close and lasting relationship, may be delayed for many reasons. If the infant is very sick, parents may unconsciously protect them- selves from getting attached by putting an emotional distance between themselves and the baby. Sometimes the difficulty is that, for whatever reason, the baby remains unresponsive to the caregiver’s initiations. Some infants are born with disabilities, a circumstance that can cut down on their ability to respond. Others simply don’t have the kinds of behaviors that draw adults to them. They’re not cute or cuddly or smi- ley. They don’t make eye contact. These infants, who don’t reward the adults around them, need adults who make a conscious effort to attach. If babies experience early lengthy separation, the attachment process can be disrupted. Babies in foster care may be moved around; changing caregivers can disrupt attachment. These delays or disruptions in attachment can influence future life in drastic ways if a sense of basic trust is not established. The child may put up barriers so that no one can get close. The hurt from loss is too great to chance again.
Temperament and Attachment Temperament can affect attachment in either a negative or positive way, depend- ing on the temperamental match between the infant and adult, whether parent or
W ill ia m Ju /F ot ol ia
Attachment may begin prenatally, as parents begin to relate to their visions of the growing fetus
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infant care teacher. Temperament is built in and can be detected early in a child’s life. Genetically determined, temperament becomes obvious as infants show dif- fering levels of activity, emotionality, and sociability that tend to remain the same over time. Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1963), the pioneers in temperament research, categorize babies as “easy,” “slow to warm,” and “difficult.” Their work helps today’s parents and caregivers understand how temperament affects behavior and shapes personality. Lally and his colleagues in the WestEd Program for Infant–Toddler Care- givers renamed the categories “fearful,” “flexible,” and “feisty,” which puts them in a more objective light. A good match between parent temperament and child temper- ament promotes attachment; a mismatch may hinder it. If the two aren’t a natural fit, the adult must adjust to the baby rather than expecting the reverse. This is impor- tant for you to understand—both when considering your own attachment process with the children you work with and also when working with parents. You can be the one to help a parent understand temperament if a mismatch is getting in the way of attachment between parent and child.
What would a mismatch look like? If an active and intense mother with a high en- ergy level finds herself with a slow, calm, mild baby, she may be disappointed. She may even wonder whether something is wrong with her baby, even though the baby is per- fectly fine. If this high-energy mother is not aware of what she is doing, she may over- stimulate her baby. She has to learn to read the signs that the baby has had enough. You can help her do that. Some parents keep on after the baby turns away or closes his or her eyes. A serious mismatch occurs when the mother interprets this behavior as boredom and continues to try to “wake the baby up and make her more lively.”
Or imagine a calm, relaxed father who loves things done on schedule and ap- preciates predictability in his life. He’ll find a mismatch with a highly active, intense baby who never seems able to regulate his rhythms or body needs. Some babies don’t keep any sort of routine; they may get hungry at a different time every day. Napping is as unpredictable as appetite and never follows a schedule. If the father of such a baby doesn’t accept that his son is different from himself, he may have trouble being sensitive to the child’s needs.
Parents who have children whose temperaments don’t match their own have to adjust their expectations, accept their babies as is, and learn to understand them. They have to be flexible about how and when they respond. They have to be super- sensitive so that they can meet their babies’ needs. All that may be hard for a parent whose temperament isn’t flexible or sensitive. This is where professionals can come in to help parents understand their babies and respond to them in ways that make connections. It’s important to help parents realize that nothing is “wrong”; it’s just that there’s a mismatch and it’s up to the parent to understand and respond rather than trying to change the baby.
Developmental Differences Babies who are born with developmental differences may not have the attachment behaviors that draw adults to them. For example, neurological issues can cause babies not to be cuddly. Some stiffen when held. Some even cry out in pain when held or touched. Others who can’t control their facial muscles may not smile or look interested in the same way typically developing babies do. Or eye contact may be missing. A child with a visual impairment, for example, may not use eye contact to establish a relationship. A child with a hearing impairment may not respond to soft
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talking. In these cases it is important for adults to look for the attachment be- haviors the children do exhibit. Adults must be constantly aware of the impor- tance of establishing connections even if the baby’s behaviors tend to get in the way. Sometimes outside help is needed to support parents, infant care teachers, early educators, or family child care pro- viders when attachment isn’t occurring in spite of efforts to encourage a close connection. As you gain experience, you may be the one who provides help to the parents.
Learning to Cope with Feelings of Loss Babies who are attached experience feelings when separation occurs. Separation is the other side of attachment. Each human has the lifelong task of com- ing to grips with separations and coping with the feelings that occur as people come into and go out of his or her life. Each broken relationship, physical departure, or death brings into play all the coping skills learned earlier. The skills for dealing with separation begin to develop in infancy.
You can perhaps get in touch with the power of the feelings surrounding separa- tion by thinking back to a time in your own life when you were apart from someone you cared about. Perhaps it was the first day of school, or a trip to the hospital, or even the first time you were left with a babysitter. It may be a less significant event— but one that sticks in your memory—like the time you took the wrong turn in the grocery store and were “lost” for a minute or two. It might be an even more signifi- cant event like the day one of your parents walked out, never to return, or the day one of them died. All of us have experience with separation, and those experiences start earlier for some than for others.
If you can remember your feelings surrounding these experiences, you can prob- ably get in touch with one or more of the following: panic, fear, anxiety, misgivings, apprehension, qualms, terror, horror, bewilderment, confusion, annoyance, irrita- tion, anger, outrage, fury, wrath, frenzy, desperation, indignity, sadness, loneliness, desertion, and abandonment. The feelings come from the need for security as well as a sense of loss of control over the situation.
The memory of your pain may be intense, or it may have muted over time. Or perhaps you have a fuzziness around the feelings or even an absence of feeling. You may even dredge up a sense of depression when you get in touch with this early separation experience.
There are all kinds of separation experiences in infancy—some that help the child grow to independence, others that leave scars and long-lasting aftereffects. One common separation infants experience comes when they are put into cribs to sleep by themselves. In cultures that place a high priority on independence, this physi- cal separation from the beginning is regarded as important. Learning to sleep alone
Fa nf o/ Fo to lia
If a baby is very sick and separated from family, attachment may be delayed
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as an infant is a skill that is valued by many in this country. It’s an important step for children coming to see them- selves as separate individuals. Some parenting experts are adamant about babies sleeping alone. Some experts, including Ferber (2006), who wrote Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, say that babies can’t get a good night’s sleep if they have to “interact” all night with someone else.
Ironically, information on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS, or crib death) indicated that an undisturbed night’s sleep may put infants at risk. In cultures where infants are held, jostled, and put to bed with an adult or another child, the rate of SIDS is dramatically lower than in cultures
where infants sleep apart from the hustle and bustle of family life in cribs in their own rooms (Grether, Shulman, & Croen, 1990; McKenna, 2014). Of course, that doesn’t mean babies should be in bed with someone. Statistics show that placing babies on their backs to sleep makes sleeping alone in a crib safer. The “back-to-sleep” campaign also lists other risk factors such as cigarette smoke, soft mattresses, overheating, and things in the crib such as pillows and loose covers. Overall, the campaign is designed to lower the risk factor of sleeping alone; it has worked to lower the number of SIDS deaths.