Parenting Guidelines for the Building of Attachment

 

From Hughes, D. (1998). Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening love in deeply troubled children. 

 

 

 

Attitude

1. Accepting
2. Curious
3. Empathic
4. Loving Playful

To facilitate the CAPACITY FOR FUN AND LOVE

1. Affective Attunement
2. Maintain Attitude
3. Eye contact, smiles, touch, hugs, rocking, movement, food
4. Regression: Nurturing experiences
5. Emotional availability in times of stress
6. Surprises
7. Holding your child
8. Reciprocal enjoyable activities
9. Reciprocal expression of thoughts and feelings
10. Humor and gentle teasing
11. Basic safety and security
12. Opportunities to imitate parents
13. Spontaneous discussions of past and future
14. Routines and rituals to develop a mutual history

 

To facilitate EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE (shame reduction and skill development)

1. Set and maintain your favoured emotional tone, not your child's
2. Maintain attitude
3. Accept thoughts, feelings and behaviours of child
4. Provide natural and logical consequences
5. Be predictable in your attitude, and less predictable in your consequences
6. Reattune following shame-inducing experiences
7. Regression: Structuring experiences
8. Interrupt cycles of resistance: mom time
9. Use paradoxical responses
10. Use permission, thinking, practicing, having restrictions, being supervised
11. Employ periodic anger (60 seconds scolding) not habitual anger or scolding
12. Clarify for all concerned that it is the child's problem not your problem
13. Use the child's anger to build a stronger connection
14. Establish discipline as simply one part of a healthy attachment cycle
15. Be in charge, but also be attuned to the affect of your child
16. Greatly limit your child's ability to hurt you, either physically or emotionally