Understanding Attachment Injuries In Children And How To Help A Guide For Parents And Caregivers

EXPANDED SECOND EDITION New Interventions More Examples Expanded Descriptions If you work with children and families, this may be the book you have been waiting for! This book provides a new, easy-to-follow roadmap for understanding and working with children with some of the most challenging and treatment-resistant behaviors and their families. Some of the most challenging children to help are those who have been injured early in life in their first relationships through disrupted or injured attachment. These children can be both hurting and hurtful to others, and are often anxious and depressed, yet push away the very things they most need for healing: love and connection. Traditional child therapies are largely ineffective and professionals and parents may be at a loss as to how to help. Perhaps there is a better way to reach attachment-injured children. Perhaps our therapy models have simply not been a good match for their needs... Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy (M-MAT) brings a fresh, innovative approach to working with children and families struggling with attachment injuries. In a whole-brain strategy, M-MAT blends a number of modalities to target precisely those areas most impacted by the attachment injury: attachment and connection, self-concept, worldview, and skills deficits. The result is a powerful, cohesive, and comprehensive attachment-based therapy. In clear, concise language, Young lays forth for the reader an easy to follow roadmap for understanding and implementing M-MAT with children and their caregivers. She additionally outlines how to work with those children who are most at risk: children who do not have a permanent, committed caregiver. M-MAT Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy provides a brief overview of attachment theory and discussion of children with attachment injuries, but focuses primarily on the how-to of implementing this therapy model to provide healing to children and families. Many interventions and examples are included throughout the book. It is intended as a practical manual for therapists and social workers, but also holds some use for parents and other professionals in understanding attachment and approaches to working with children with attachment injuries. M-MAT is designed for children with mild to severe attachment injuries including those with developmental trauma and/or diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder (rad). Adopted and foster children may benefit greatly from this model, as placements are often lost due to untreated or under-treated attachment injuries "M-MAT is a two-pronged approach with both a play and a talk component. The play component utilizes largely non-verbal forms of communication, connection and nurturing, such as mirroring, rhythm, touch and eye contact. The talk component engages the power of language and the child's thoughts by addressing cognitive distortions, responsibility, and self-concept through re-storying, skill building, and psychoeducation, creating a new narrative in which the child can organize and make sense of his/her experiences in a healthy, adaptive way. The two components together reinforce each other, allow for deeper integration and healing, and are far more powerful than either alone. Together they access many parts of the brain and harness the incredible healing power inherent in both left and right brain modalities. This is a whole-brain approach that utilizes both bottom-up and top-down interventions." "The main tools for engagement and buy-in for the child are playful engagement, fun, deep empathy, reflection, and truth." Excerpts from M-MAT Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy: Healing Attachment Injuries in Children and Families

Adopting or fostering a child with reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is beyond challenging. These kids often have violent outbursts, engage in outlandish lying, steal, play with feces, and hoard food. They are broken children who too often break even the most loving of caregivers. Many parents of these children feel utterly isolated as family, friends, and professionals minimize the struggles. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) - The Essential Guide for Parents comes from a parent who's in the trenches with you. Keri has lived the journey of raising a son with RAD and has navigated the mental health system for over a decade. This is the resource you've been waiting for - you won't find platitudes or false hopes. What you will find is critical information, practical suggestions, and resource recommendations that will provide a way forward.If you desperately need help to navigate the difficult RAD journey with your child, this book is it.

Has Trauma Affected the Child You’re Caring For? Just as you prepared your home to welcome a new child, it is important to prepare your heart and mind—especially if the child has suffered from a background of trauma. Perhaps your invitation for love is met with hostility, and you find that this new member of your family rejects connection. If so, then it’s critical to acknowledge the effects of trauma on a child’s ability to attach. Mike and Kristin Berry realized this when they became adoptive and foster parents. In their twenty-year marriage, they have had the joy of adopting eight children and fostering twenty-three. They now offer guidance from their own journey to others parenting a child who has experienced past trauma. In Securely Attached, they offer practical insights that are supported by therapeutic and medical facts, so all parents can provide best for the children in their care. You’ll learn: How trauma changes the brain How to identify trauma-induced behaviors How to identify attachment disorders How to advocate for your child in the community. Get the help you need to better care for the children in your home. Discover how you can create a family and home that is safe and supportive so your children can grow to trust and become securely attached.

Learn to change the dynamics in the relationship with your child through the development of secure attachments. Healing Parents gives parents and/or caregivers the information, tools, support, self-awareness, and hope they need to help a wounded child heal emotional wounds and improve behaviorally, socially, and morally. This book is a toolbox filled with practical strategies and research that will help parents and/or caregivers understand their child, learn to respond in a constructive way, and create a healthy environment.

"This book presents a short and accessible introduction to what 'attachment' means, how to recognise attachment disorders in children, and how to help them." -back cover

Now in a fully updated and expanded edition, Levy and Orlans' classic text provides a comprehensive overview of attachment theory, how attachment issues manifest, and how they can be treated. The book covers attachment-focused assessment and diagnosis, specialised training and education for caregivers, treatment for children and caregivers and early intervention and prevention programmes for high-risk families. The authors explain their unique models of 'corrective attachment therapy' and 'corrective attachment parenting', and provide practical guidance on goals and techniques for clinicians who work with maltreated and attachment disordered children and families. This second edition incorporates advances in the fields of child and family psychology that have occurred since the book first published in 1998, with substantial new sections on interpersonal neurobiology, adult and couple treatment, the application of positive psychology. Clear, authoritative and skills-oriented, this is the essential guide to attachment for psychologists, social workers, clinicians, as well as foster and adoptive parents.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.