Here are some great insights on "attachment" strategies for toddlers from Sara on her "Every Bitter Thing is Sweet" blog site. As Scott and I pursue adopting a toddler -- I've been trying to learn more about ways to help our child(ren) learn to attach to us. If you're doing the same kind of research, you may want to check it out:
A friend who, on the heals of her last domestic adoption, is pursuing Ethiopian adoption (I love that … no time wasted!) asked me recently about attachment. As she was considering a referral of a child older than what she’d originally anticipated, she wanted to know what attachment issues she might anticipate.
Now that this is behind us, I can more readily write about the challenges we faced with Caleb.
Early on he began to show classic signs of a child who hadn’t fully attached to his mother. What some parents boast about — “my child just loves people! isn’t he so friendly!” — the parent who has adopted dreads. I got very used to emailing friends and family in advance of playdates to request that they not respond to my son’s shirt-tugs and freely-distributed kisses. God-infused mother’s intuition guided me even more than all the books on attachment I read; but both told me that without a secure understanding that Mommy and Daddy were different than the others drifting in and out of Caleb’s life, his emotional maturity would be stunted. Love can come from many places, but mother is a role only one can fill. ("From Every Bitter Thing is Sweet" blog)
Click here, to read the whole story.
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