Attachment-Focused Parenting
Families should be a safe haven, filled with warmth and anchored in secure attachment, where children can grow and develop into well-adjusted adults. Attachment-focused parenting is an integral part of creating this protective factor.
All parents want the best for their children and to provide them with a loving, nurturing home. And although every family is different and there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are multiple factors of attachment-focused parenting that will fit into any parenting style.
Attachment-focused parenting, sometimes also referred to as "sensitive, responsive parenting," is a parenting style rooted in fostering a strong sense of security in the parent-child relationship through affectionate and receptive behavior that is, above all, consistent. This can be done through touch and physical affection as well as play and emotional availability - that is, paying close attention to your child's moods and feelings and being open to talk about and respond to them appropriately.
When attachment-focused behaviors are missing or inconsistent, it can negatively affect a child's resilience and increase their risk of developing behavioral or developmental problems. They may have trouble developing their independence, be more anxious and fearful, or have difficulty regulating their emotions. Children and youth in foster care or who have been adopted may not have been able to develop this type of attachment with their birth parents.
Foster and adoptive parents may encounter challenges when parenting these children and youth, but it is never too late to develop a trusting, loving, and consistent parent-child relationship. Parenting Your Adopted Preschooler and the related publications for school-age children and teenagers provide insight and advice for developing secure attachment.
Parenting is a tremendous responsibility full of many moments of joy. But sometimes the rapid rate of a young child's growth and development can leave parents feeling a little bit overwhelmed. This Strengthening Families Series highlights six factors that promote positive parenting and protect against stressors and frustrations that can lead to harsh parenting.
PATH (Promoting Attachment and Trauma Healing) is a comprehensive education framework that supports caregivers who are parenting children with known trauma effects and/or attachment difficulties. The goals of this framework are to increase understanding; build and strengthen skills; and grow the emotional resiliency of parents and caregivers as they create healthy attachments and teach self-regulation to their children, many of whom have come to their families through foster care, kinship placement, or adoption.
In this webinar presenters tie the tenets of the framework to specific examples in families' lives as well as the developmental neuroscience and trauma-informed strategies that support this work.
For more information on attachment-focused parenting visit www.childwelfare.gov.
Remember to complete your continuing education credit report for each training you complete. This will help to ensure that you are receiving credit for any training hours completed and that those hours are applied to your required 12 hours per year of in-service training.