Supporting a child with attachment issues

Key things foster carers can do to help children build positive attachments include:

Establishing boundaries: this may be challenging but in the long run can help children feel safe.
Routines and consistency: helping a child to feel settled and know what to expect.
Empathy and child focus: see the world through the eyes of the child looking beneath behaviours to see any emotional needs that may be driving the behaviour.
Establishing trust: building your relationship via listening, talking, playing and dedicating quality time to their needs.
Focus on small steps: recognise the small achievements and accept things may at times feel like they go backward before moving forward again.
Health and exercise: good sleeping patterns and healthy eating habits are likely to improve a child’s physical and mental health and mood so its important to consider when tackling attachment issues.

Supervision and support from your fostering service and any other professionals involved can help foster carers to stand back from the day-to-day events and look at these from an objective point of view. It may then be possible to track progress and identify where things need to be developed further. It can also assist foster carers in managing their own feelings and identify any need for additional support in relation to themselves.

Challenging, irrational and rejecting behaviours can bewilder, frustrate and demoralise even the most committed and experienced foster carer. Looking at the child’s behaviour from an attachment viewpoint can help foster carers find alternative explanations, make sense of difficult situations, have empathy with the child, and develop parenting strategies that can reduce a child’s distress

Things to consider:

because a child or young person does not show obvious feelings or behaviour at separation does not mean that the child does not feel it
some children and young people, because of their early experiences, may have very unpredictable and sometimes self-defeating strategies for getting help and support
what children and young people learn from their early experiences may be very resistant to change regardless of the carer’s skill, effort and commitment
How to use information from professionals who have assessed the child or young person and formed views about how to best help them including the part that the fostering household can play
That even where children and young people have been abused, they will have intense feelings towards their attachment figures and may still want to turn to them for comfort
That whilst most children come to have an attachment relationship with their birth parent(s) others may become attachment figures such as grandparents etc.
Each fostering service will have their own support and training approach and there are lots of reading materials and resources available on attachment-check what is recommended with your service.

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