Unattached kids... staggering figures...

Wow, this puts it in perspective . What is wrong with our society that we're producing so many unattached kids? .

Research has shown that up to 80% of high risk families (abuse and neglect, poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, history of maltreatment in parents' childhood, depression and other psychological disorders in parents) create severe attachment disorders in their children. Since there are one million substantiated cases of serious abuse and neglect in the U.S. each year, the statistics indicate that there are 800,000 children with severe attachment disorder coming to the attention of the child welfare system each year. This does not include thousands of children with attachment disorder adopted from other countries.

http://www.attachmentexperts.com/whatisattachment.html

[arymanth]

This subject has been on my mind a lot lately.

In the article it lists some of the symptoms of attachment disorder.... among them I found this:

lacks trust, controlling ("bossy"), manipulative, does not give or receive genuine affection and love, indiscriminately affectionate with strangers,

I have recently been involved in a discussion about Ezzo and "crying it out" , and I just couldn't put my finger on what really bothers me about this kind of parenting. THIS IS IT!!! Parents are TEACHING their kids by the way they treat them to be MANIPULATIVE, to be CONTROLLING, to be BOSSY....and they reward them for showing FALSE EMOTIONS. (ie. doing everything with a "happy heart")

Babies are shown from the very beginning HOW TO MANIPULATE.... because that is what the parents do to them. They make it impossible to do anything but what THEY, the parents, want the child to do. They model an excessive use of CONTROL. (the "funnel", CIO) They demonstrate how to be BOSSY (first time obedience). They punish a child for NOT being indiscriminately affectionate with strangers. (punishing for shyness, teaching them to "separate" from the parents at an early age.) They put all sorts of conditions on their LOVE, so that the child does not learn genuine affection.

Even if these children do not end up with attachment disorders, they are still being sent damaging messages.

Just my random thoughts....

Stephanie

good rambling thoughts though!

I really and truly think it is a substitute care situation. Daycare or left with lots of different people all the time instead of a primary caregiver or two...

We have several 5 year olds at work who have been coming to care 10 hours a day, 5 days a week since they were SIX WEEKS OLD. I doubt I need to tell anyone here about the caregiver turnover and daily staff shortages at daycares. Even those of us who actually care about the children can not possibly substitute the attention of a primary caregiver. I think it would be truly impossible for children done like this to have appropriate attachments.

[TulipMama]

Here are some things I've written about related to attachment issues:

Loving Families and Reactive Attachment Disorder

Adoption and Attachment Resources

Mommies, Babies, and Chemistry


A child doesn't have to have the more severe RAD to have attachment issues. For me, I can see some of the choices that I made that resulted in attachment issues with my oldest children (though I loved them dearly, and they were *minor* on the attachment problem spectrum.) It made a BIG difference when I was focused on reattachment actions. For us, that involved lots of hugging, cuddling, co-sleeping, etc.

[happy2bmama]

Originally Posted by arymanth

I have recently been involved in a discussion about Ezzo and "crying it out" , and I just couldn't put my finger on what really bothers me about this kind of parenting. THIS IS IT!!! Parents are TEACHING their kids by the way they treat them to be MANIPULATIVE, to be CONTROLLING, to be BOSSY....and they reward them for showing FALSE EMOTIONS. (ie. doing everything with a "happy heart")

Babies are shown from the very beginning HOW TO MANIPULATE.... because that is what the parents do to them. They make it impossible to do anything but what THEY, the parents, want the child to do. They model an excessive use of CONTROL. (the "funnel", CIO) They demonstrate how to be BOSSY (first time obedience). They punish a child for NOT being indiscriminately affectionate with strangers. (punishing for shyness, teaching them to "separate" from the parents at an early age.) They put all sorts of conditions on their LOVE, so that the child does not learn genuine affection.

Yup - I see this too. My Ezzo friends are "frazzled" when their children don't behave "by the book" and they become more controlling.

I also have several Ezzo friends who are stay at home Moms whose children are aggressive, manipulative, and just pure angry.

I plan on going back and reading some of those articles you wrote, TulipMomma! I'm not really familiar with what attachement disorder actually is.

My first thought when I started reading was that some people would probably read this and think that MY kids have "attachment disorder" b/c my boys are "too attached." :/ I get so tired of having people tell me that they just need to get used to being away from me or and implying that I'm doing them and myself a disservice by not continually leaving them in nurseries/care environments with people they don't know and trust.

Our children learn about how to relate to others from how *we* relate to *them*.

Consistently, these kids are descibed as:

inflexible - poor coping mechanisms; react badly to change
inappropriate emotional responses - blunted, distant and/or reactive and aggressive (hitting etc.)
avoidant of intimacy - trouble giving and recieving hugs, avoid eye contact etc.
low self esteem - dependent on constant external validation for a sense of worth

Now read the list again and think specifically about *how* these characteristics are modelled *daily* by this kind of parenting. It's no coincidence that these descriptions could easily be of the parents themselves.

The real shame is that a lot of the negative characteritics that this kind of parenting brings out in children, often fuel parents' desires to 'regain control' *over* their child...firstly, it is rationalised as proof for the necessity of the battle, iykwim..and secondly (because of the mindset it promotes, it becomes imperative that the child behaves in order for the parent to feel good about themselves - again, external validation of self worth.

Unfortunately, a person who constantly views their child in an adverserial framework - adult pitted against child in a battle for supremacy - never really had any deep sense of security in their power as a parent to start with.

[BornFreeBaby]

Originally Posted by happy2bmama

I also have several Ezzo friends who are stay at home Moms whose children are aggressive, manipulative, and just pure angry.

This is exactly what I was reading from Dr. Sears book, "The Discipline book". He says:

"Suppose parents for fear of spoiling their baby or letting her maipulate them, restrain themselves from responding to her cries and develop a more distant, low-touch style of parenting. What happens then? The baby must either cry harder and more disturbingly to get her needs met or give up and withdraw. In either case, she finds that her caregiving world is not responsive. Eventuallly, since her cues are not responded to, she learns not to give cues. She senses something is missing in her life. She becomes angry and either outwardly hostile or else withdrawn. In the first case, the baby is not very nice to be around, and parents find ways to avoid her. In the second case, the baby is harder to connect with, and again parents and child enjoy each other less. Either way, this child will be difficult to discipline. Since the parents don't allow themselves to respond intuitively to their baby's cues, they become less sensitive and lose confidence in their parenting skills, another setup for discipline problems."

I thought this was interesting about reconnecting and gives me hope for my past mistakes:

"...its never too late to get attached...You may need to devote 6-12 months to the reconnection process. This time may include drastic lifestyle changes, involvement in your child's projects, a high frequency of focused attention, and lots of time just having fun with your child. One parent we know home-schooled her 6 y.o. for a year..One parent described his reconnecting process w/ a difficult child: 'It was like camping out w/ our five yearold for a year. "