Children with attachment disorder are the victims of abuse,
neglect, abandonment, physical illness, multiple placements
and/or in-utero drug/alcohol exposure. Their problems are
rooted in the first five years of their lives, when trauma
occurred. Stable attachments cannot be formed when a child
experiences frequent changes in daycare or foster care, or
when the child's social, emotional, physical, and cognitive
needs are unmet.
While many children with attachment disorder have grown up
in foster care and/or adoptive homes, these disorders occur
in children who are growing up with their biological parents
as well. It is estimated that one-third of elementary school
children in the United States have some form of an attachment
issue, if not the full blown disorder, due to divorce,
inappropriate daycare programs, and multiple caregivers.
Children who have experienced medical events such as
hospitalization, placement in an incubator or a body cast can
also develop these disorders.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Fourth Edition, published by the American
Psychiatric Association, there are two types of Reactive
Attachment Disorder. In the Inhibited Type the child
persistently fails to initiate and to respond to most social
interactions in a developmentally appropriate way. The child
shows a pattern of excessively inhibited, hypervigilant or
highly ambivalent responses (for example, frozen
watchfulness, resistance to comfort, or mixture of approach
and avoidance). In the Disinhibited Type, there is a
pattern of diffused attachments. The child exhibits
indiscriminate sociability or a lack of selectivity in the
choice of attachment figures. For example, the child may be
extremely charming and friendly with those who are not trying
to be his or her parents, while acting violently toward
parents who are attempting to become emotionally close to the
child.
What is Attachment Disorder?
A person with an attachment disorder has difficulty forming
loving, lasting, intimate relationships. These individuals
are unable to be genuinely affectionate with others, have not
experienced conscience development and cannot trust others.
Attachment is necessary for the development of an emotionally
healthy person who has conscience development, experiences
empathy, attains full intellectual potential, thinks
logically, copes with stress and frustration, becomes self
reliant, develops healthy personal and business
relationships, and handles the ups and downs of every day
life.
Children with attachment disorder do not respect authority,
especially that of their parents. They are sometimes
oppositional and defiant in the school setting, although many
of these children behave perfectly with those who are not
parenting them. It is not uncommon for a child with
attachment disorder to be a good student as well as the most
helpful child in the class. The same child may go home
and threaten his mother with a knife, set fires, and/or kill
animals. Children with attachment disorder have been so
damaged that they cannot trust. Their behavior meets their
subconscious need to keep those who love them most at a
distance. They are fearful that, if they become emotionally
close to their parents, they will somehow be hurt again as
they were in the past. These children are terrified of
closeness, and will do anything they can to create distance
between themselves and their parents. One way this is
manifested is in children's ability to triangulate, that is
to pit one adult against the other. Children with attachment
disorder frequently lie to their teachers, accusing their
parents of emotional abuse, physical abuse, or neglect, and
lie so convincingly that their teachers believe them. Many
parents have been erroneously reported for suspected child
abuse when school personnel have listened to the child
without checking the facts with the parent.
What's a teacher to do?
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Develop and maintain constant communication with the
child's parents. This will greatly increase the chance of
all adults being consistent in the child's life at home
and at school. Be sure to check with parents if you
suspect that the child's story could be untrue. Ask
parents to do the same for you. For example, if the child
comes home and says that his teacher hit him, yelled at
him or otherwise behaved inappropriately, please ask the
parents to check out the child's story with you before
acting upon it.
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Children with attachment disorder need a tight, loving,
structured environment where the rules never change but
the consequences often do.
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They need a tightly structured environment in order to
feel safe. They do not need an overly permissive
environment which makes them feel unsafe. Please
respect the need of the parents to be the primary
attachment figures in this child's life. While many
teachers, especially in younger grades, tend to hug
children and openly display affection for them, this type
of treatment is inappropriate for a child with attachment
disorder. If this type of treatment is given in the school
setting, the child will simply triangulate, manipulating
the teacher into thinking that he or she is an important
attachment figure in a child's life, and using the
teacher's affection to manipulate the parents at home.
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Follow through on any and all consequences. The child's
safety and that of others depends on it.
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Hold the child responsible for his or her actions.
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Remember that these children are superficially charming
with strangers and others who are not their parents. They
lack the ability to have true closeness with their parents
and other family members.
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Please understand that if this child criticizes his
parents and asks to go home with you this is a means of
distancing from closeness with the parents. The child is
fearful of closeness with parents because previous parents
have left the child or traumatized him/her.
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Children with attachment disorder need to regress and
experience younger stages of development before they can behave in an
age-appropriate fashion. Please realize that there are
days when the child may need to stay home from school in
order to receive therapy, or because the child simply
needs to be close to his or her parents. Once attachment
issues are resolved, the child will have plenty of energy
to make up for lost time at school.
For more information about attachment disorder, please visit
www.attach.org.
