supporting healthy attachments between parents and their young children healthy families network...

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Supporting Healthy Attachments Between Parents and their Young Children Healthy Families Network Children’s Mental Health Series St. Paul, MN November 22, 2005 Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D., Director Irving B. Harris Training Programs Center for Early Education and Development University of Minnesota E-mail: [email protected]

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Supporting Healthy Attachments Between Parents and theirYoung Children

Healthy Families NetworkChildren’s Mental Health Series

St. Paul, MN

November 22, 2005

Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D., DirectorIrving B. Harris Training Programs

Center for Early Education and DevelopmentUniversity of Minnesota

E-mail: [email protected]

How does attachment developand how does it

shape later development?

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Sensitive care felt security confident, connected

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Secure Attachment

Samantha

Distribution ofAttachment Patterns

General Population

Among high-risk families

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Securely Attached

Insecurely Attached

Insecurely Attached

Securely Attached

30%

70%

55%

45%

Anxious Resistant Attachment

Erratic carepreoccupied, hesitant

anxious, dependent

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Reese

Anxious Avoidant Attachment

Unresponsive care distant, flat

aggressive, lacks empathy

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Andy

Disorganized Attachment

Threat from caregiverconfused, anxious

dissociative disorders

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Devon

What factors underlie parents’capacity to build a secure

attachment with their child?

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Anticipating both the joys and hardships of parenting

Realistic Expectations About Becoming a Parent

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

• Realistic behavioral expectations

• Understanding of key developmental behaviors

• Seeing through the eyes of the child

Knowledge of Child Development

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

• Formal resources

• Informal resources

• Skills and confidence to access those resources

Social Support

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

• Early relationships with parents and other caregivers

• How the person has come to think about that history (“state of mind” about remembered attachment)

Relationship History

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Link Between Parental State of Mind and Parent-Infant Attachment

Adult Attachment Strange SituationInterview (AAI)

Secure-autonomous Secure Dismissing Avoidant Preoccupied Anxious-Resistant Unresolved Disorganized

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

• Face the pain

• Acknowledge its ongoing influence

• Arrive at an understanding of why caregivers behaved as they did

• Identify what to repeat and what not to repeat from the past

• Muster all available resources to help you live out those choices

Healthy Resolution(Secure-autonomous state of mind)

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

What can we do to support the

development of secure attachment between parents

and children?

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Group Exercise

• Discuss messages you experienced in childhood

• Tear up those you wish you had not received

• Focus on positive messages you want to carry forward

• Practice those messages during parent-infant interaction time

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Relationship as a vehicle for change:

• Be a secure base; contradict “working models”

• Reframe the person’s response

• Reflect on experience, coping and adaptation.

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

Engage the Baby as Your Ally(Seeing is Believing™)

Prepared by Martha Farrell Erickson, Ph.D.

How will you usethis informationin your work?