Creating , strengthening, and maintaining the parent-child bond in a foundational aspect of healing a child’s experiences with trauma and a lack of attachment in early life. Intentional nurturing, as taught in our Therapeutic Parenting Course, is used to help parents bond with their child through heart-to-heart connection, play, work, and daily interactions.
Learn more about the technique and how to use it by joining one of our courses.
Keys to Bonding:
- Warm, loving eye contact, soft and full of smiles
- Loving touch, such as holding, hugging, cuddling, massages
- Movement, such as rocking, bouncing, or dancing together
- Smiles from your eyes
- Sweet milk sugar, such as caramels, ice cream, or pudding
Other Factors for Bonding:
- Pizzazz – lots of it! Pizzazz behaviours that you want your child to repeat. Your child craves excitement, and giving it in a positive way using pizzazz will help them focus on positive experiences rather than negative experiences.
- Parent interactions that encourage reciprocity on the parents’ terms, such as singing together, reciting nursery rhymes, or playing imitation games where your child follows the parent’s lead. Therapeutic parents need to be strong leaders and make the activity choices until your child is strong enough to handle it.
- Children working together with parents in a fun way, engaging in activities that your child completes on the parents’ terms to enable your child to give to the family.
- Have continuity with your child’s past. Life books are a great way to do this! Begin with your child’s birth and continue to the present.
Attachment helps a child to:
- attain his full intellectual potential
- sort out what he perceives
- think logically
- develop a conscience
- become self-reliant
- cope with stress and frustration
- handle fear and worry
- develop future relationships
- reduce jealousy (Fahlberg, 1979)
“Attachment is the most critical thing that happens in infancy other than meeting the baby’s physical needs. Too much emphasis cannot be placed on this point.” (High Risk, 1987)
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” Anne Frank