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From Cradle to Crime: Attachment Tips
Indiscriminate Friendliness
Children with attachment disorders may be indiscriminately friendly with strangers; walking up to them and showing intimate affection or asking to go home with them. They may proclaim to love the person and tell the stranger their real caregiver is abusing them. It is important to warn others to prevent them from feeding into the problem.
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Homeostasis Stage of Attachment
Coined by Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, this stage of attachment takes place during the first 7-10 days of life. The infant begins to develop control of input and output systems. The child may tune out irritating noises or turn its head toward a welcoming sound. The care giver begins learning to read infant cues and must also learn to empathize with the infantīs needs.
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Attachment Theory
Attachment theory began with the work of Sigmund Freud in the early 1950s. Freud believed that an infant was born with innate survival behaviors that attracted the attention of caregivers. And that caregivers had innate responses to these attraction behaviors that caused for a reciprocol relationship to form between the two. Freud also believed in imprinting, whereas this relationship between self and caregiver made a permanent pattern in the childīs inner psych. Freud believed the attachment was based purely on gratification of physical need.
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The Autonomy Stage of Attachment
The final stage of attachment is the emergence of autonomy stage that takes place sometime around 4-5 months. The infant now begins to search the environment for social cues and to respond to others and other objects. Object permanence (Piaget, 1954) begins and the caregiver, along with other significant people in the infantīs life, become important to the infant.
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Manipulation
Children with attachment disorders often manipulate those in their environment, sometimes for something they want or need, but often just for the sake of manipulating another. They are often know to tell one adult one thing, and then tell another adult another as a way of setting them up against each other. They may play one adult against another just for the sake of the thrill of watching what happens as their drama unfolds.
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Definition of Attachment
An attachment is the "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings" (Bowlby, 1969, p. 194). Some believe a childīs first attachment becomes the internal working model on which the child bases all other future relationships. A healthy attachment may inoculate the child from atypical behavior in later life while an unhealthy attachment may set the child up for behavior problems.
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Inhibited Attachment Disorder
There are many types of attachment disorders. A child with Inhibited Attachment Disorder may exhibit an ongoing reluctance to approach, touch, or manipulate inanimate objects such as toys in unfamiliar surroundings, and especially in the presence of unfamiliar people. The child may actively avoid or withdraw too readily from social interaction with people, or may exhibit a restricted range of affect in social situations, even in the presence of the attachment figure, with predominant mood ranging from sober scrutiny to hypervigilance.
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Role-Reversal Attachment Disorder
A child who is not securely attached may be oversolicitous, bossy, overnurturing, or controlling during interaction with the caregiver. The child may alsomaintain an unusual degree of scrutiny about caregiverīs psychological well-being.
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Hyperactivity/Impulsivity
Children with attachment disorders often display many of the same symptoms as attention deficit disorder (ADHD). They may be fidgety, impulsive, and have difficulty concentrating. Therefore, they may experience difficulty in school.
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Freud & Attachment Theory
Freudīs psychoanalytical approach to attachment most notably focused on the oral and anal stages of need gratification in the infant. He also believed the attachment was limited to the mother-infant dyad and did not include other caregivers or individuals in the infantīs life. The image of the mother fulfilling the infantīs needs was believed to leave a lasting impression, or imprinting, on the infantīs brain that then became the base from which the infant formed, perceived, and reacted in other relationships.
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Lack of Respect for Authorities
Children with attachment disorders often have a lack of respect for authority. This includes parents, teachers, police officers, and others in charge. This lack of respect comes from the distorted perception that no adult can be trusted and that the child must fend for him or herself.
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Strange Situation Procedure
The Strange Situation Procedure was developed by Jane Ainsworth as a way of measuring attachment security. There are 8 steps to the procedure: 1)Mother and baby introduced into room, 2)Mother and baby alone, baby free to explore (3 minutes), 3)Stranger enters, sits down, talks to mother and then tries to engage the baby in play (3 minutes), 4)Mother leaves. Stranger and baby alone (up to 3 minutes), 5)First reunion. Mother returns and stranger leaves unobtrusively. Mother settles baby if necessary, and tries to withdraw to her chair (3 minutes), 6)Mother leaves. Baby alone (up to 3 minutes), 7)Stranger returns and tries to settle the baby if necessary, and then withdraw to her chair (up to 3 minutes), 8)Second reunion. Mother returns and stranger leaves unobtrusively. Mother settles baby and tries to withdraw to her chair (3 minutes).
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Eating Disorders
Children with attachment disorders often have eating disorders. As children, they may hoard or stuff food, or eat until they are overly full. They may also develop anorexia nervosa, or bulemia. They may starve themselves or become obese.
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Lack of Trust
The key feature of attachment disorders is a lack of trust in the environment. The child believes that no one can be trusted to take care of his or her needs, and that the child must do anything within his or her power to perserve the self.
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Fire setting
Many children with attachment disorders develop a fascination with fire. They can be at risk, both to themselves, and to others, and they often do not think of the consequences of their actions, nor do they care if they inflict harm on others. Even their immediate family.
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Mood Swings
Children with attachment disorders often have unpredictable mood swings, going from happiness to anger in seconds. Their moods may also not match what is actually happening, for example, they might laugh as something tragic happens, or might become very sad over something that should have caused happiness.
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Attachment Over Time
Longitudinal studies of attachment patterns over time, show a high level of stability in attachment styles with the same style of interaction in infancy and early childhood being seen in later school-age and early adolescence years. Such findings suggest that children may not "grow out" of significant problematic behavior without intervention.
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Testing Stage of Attachment
Around 3-4 months of age, the infant and caregiver begin testing each otherīs responses and cues while building additional behaviors to attract and signal each other. Dr. T. Berry Brazelton called this the testing limits stage.
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Fascination with Blood & Gore
Children with attachment disorders are often fascinated with blood and gore, becoming spellbound as they watch gory movies on television. They often get "stuck" on stories about others being hurt. They may even resort to torturing a pet or other animal.
