Parents everywhere seek a close emotional bond with their babies. They also strive to develop a parenting style that works with their values. Some parenting models favor treating children as little adults to be reasoned with. Others take an approach that stresses rule-following. They all aim to create self-reliant adults who can maintain healthy relationships and have their own families.

Raising and trying to heal a child with a disorder of attachment or serious attachment disturbance is a daunting challenge. Parents struggle alone with the overwhelming sense that something is terribly wrong but do not know what it is or how to fix it. Often, children with severe attachment problems manage to divide the adults in their lives, pitting the outside world against the family. This is usually a defensive strategy that helps them prevent closeness with their parents — the thing they most fear! Sadly, the outside world often misunderstands this, and the parents are blamed for the problems.

What is important to remember is that the child’s behaviors are symptoms of distorted thinking and feeling that came from early experiences with primary caregivers. We cannot talk children out of these ways of being. We cannot punish children out of these ways of being (indeed, doing so may only worsen!). Instead, we need to help children experience their way out of these habits of relating by offering them healthy relationships that provide the nurturing experiences they required when they were younger. The kind of experience they most need experiences with new or recovered parents who can really feel what it is to be them; help them make sense of what has happened to them in a way that does not mean they are unlovable and unworthy, and learn new ways of relating that allows emotional connection and trust to grow. That can be a challenge when the child actively pushes against the parent’s attempts to love and care for the child.