The Teacher's Introduction to Attachment

Practical Essentials for Teachers, Carers and School Support Staff

Nicola Marshall

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857009739
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Counseling

Simple and concise, The Teacher's Introduction to Attachment offers an easy way to understand children with attachment issues and how they can be supported.

Author Nicola Marshall combines her expertise as an adoptive parent and schools trainer to describe in plain English what attachment is, how children develop attachment problems and how these problems affect a child's social, emotional and neurological development. She addresses some of the difficulties in identifying attachment issues in children - common among children who are in care or adopted, but which are sometimes mistaken for symptoms of ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Nicola also describes a range of helpful principles and practical strategies which will help children flourish - from simple tips for the individual on how to improve their communication to the changes a school can make to reduce a child's anxiety about changes and transitions.

Ideal for teachers and support staff to pick up and use, this book is an essential addition to any school's staff library.

Part 1

THE THEORY BEHIND ATTACHMENT AND TRAUMA

Chapter 1

WHAT IS TRAUMA?

Some of children’s behaviour in the classroom can be very strange and confusing: the child who seems to crave negative attention, the explosive outbursts of seemingly otherwise placid children, the hiding under tables or biting sleeves of clothes. How about the child who goes through their whole primary school experience without ever being invited to another child’s birthday party? Or a child fixated on a particular teaching assistant – so much so that they cry when they have to leave them? What about the otherwise intelligent child who cannot grasp the implications of spitting at other children, or the child in reception who has to be home-schooled because of her very challenging behaviour?

How about the high school girl who lines up the yellow cards in front of her – proud of her achievement of being told off more than anyone else in the classroom? Have you noticed that very sensitive ten-year-old boy who cries whenever he loses his pencil or someone looks at him in a funny way? How about the 15-year-old who seems to always be the one caught stealing – even though his ‘friends’ put him up to it? Do you notice the small 11-year-old girl in Year 7 who doesn’t seem to be able to connect with the others around her and gravitates towards the other vulnerable children?

These are all real examples of children I know – children who struggle in our educational system. They don’t trust people; they don’t make deep lasting relationships. Learning is not why they come to school; they come because we make them. Whilst they are there their main aim is to survive the day – to come out unscathed to live another day. This may sound very dramatic but I know it is true of many vulnerable children.

What are these behaviours about? What are these children trying to say to us through their actions? We need to take a big step back and look at what may have happened in their lives before they came to school to really understand what the feelings are behind the behaviour they present to us.

In order to take this step back you need to first understand the impact of trauma.

There are two elements that need to be present for trauma to occur. The first is an external event, incident or threat to a person. This may be in the form of an actual attack on a person, through domestic violence, for example, where a child is physically hit. It may also be through the atmosphere of a threatening environment where an adult is hit, shouted at or emotionally abused – where a child is surrounded by that ever-present feeling of dread.

The other element is the internal response to that threat. Depending on many factors such as our personalities, resilience and perceptions of a situation, the internal response will be different and can span the full range of emotions. This is why you may have two siblings in a family that experience the same threatening environment but respond very differently.

Trauma is, by definition, a combination of an external event and an internal experience. (Cairns 2002)

There are also two types of trauma. The first type (type I) is where the external event is a one off: it may be a violent attack, bereavement, having witnessed something horrible or having a major accident. The second (type II) is repetitive trauma, where the external event or threat is on an on-going basis – this is what we are talking about primarily in this book. It is important to note, though, that children who experience type I trauma may still experience the long-term effects of trauma described in later chapters of this book. The internal response is the key. The episode may have been so devastating to the child that the impact is long-lasting.

When thinking about trauma, it is important to consider what these external factors actually look like and where they can come from. The factors surrounding the trauma and how that impacts a child can be complex, and Chapter 2 will outline some of those areas of risk.

Chapter 2

WHAT CAUSES TRAUMA?

ABUSE AND NEGLECT

Probably the most talked about area, abuse and neglect are sadly things we hear too much about these days. Abuse falls into many categories such as physical abuse (domestic violence), sexual abuse, emotional and mental abuse. Again, when we think about the direct threat and the perceived threat, this can be actual abuse against the child or against others within the environment that the child witnesses on a daily basis.

Take domestic violence, for example. Consider for a moment someone you love being hurt in a room next door: you can hear them being hurt, you can feel the fear and devastation but you cannot do anything to prevent their pain. That helplessness and powerlessness is something children living with domestic violence experience continually – the sense of fear and shame of not being able to stop the abuse.

Neglect is something that came very much to the forefront of our minds many years ago when the orphanages in Romania and Russia were discovered. Horrendous images of row upon row of children in cots with no stimulation, no physical contact and no nurture brought a sick feeling to all our stomachs. In this day and age, we would be horrified to think that still exists. However, it does!

The statistics on neglect in children in the UK published by the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children)tell us:

•21,312 children were the subject of a child protection plan under the category of neglect or were on a child protection register under a category that includes neglect on 31 March 2013.

•42 per cent of all the children in the UK who were the subject of a child protection plan or on a child protection register were under a category that includes neglect.

Another area of abuse occurs when the pregnant mother has been drinking alcohol or taking drugs during pregnancy.

This is a whole area in itself and one worth exploring more: Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is very similar to attachment difficulties in its symptoms but requires a different approach.

In the resource section of this book, you will find places to research this more. The statistics again are frightening in this area:

When you drink, so does your baby. It takes approximately one hour for your body to process each unit of alcohol; it takes 3 times as long for the alcohol to pass round the system of the baby in the womb. (FASD Trust website)

There is much debate about how much is too much in terms of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. The impact on the unborn child depends very much on the amount of alcohol and the time period during the pregnancy. However, below you will find a list of the potential problems newborns could face as a result of alcohol misuse during pregnancy, according to the Missouri Department of Mental Health, Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse:

•small body size and weight

•slower than normal development and failure to ‘catch up’

•deformed ribs and sternum

•curved spine and hip dislocations

•bent, fused, webbed, or missing fingers or toes

•limited movement of joints

•small head

•facial abnormalities

•small eye openings

•skin webbing between eyes and base of nose

•drooping eyelids

•near-sightedness

•failure of eyes to move in same direction

•short upturned nose

•sunken nasal bridge

•flat or absent groove between nose and upper lip

•thin upper lip

•opening in roof of mouth

•small jaw

•low-set or poorly formed ears

•organ deformities

•heart defects or heart murmurs

•genital malformations

•kidney and urinary defects

•central nervous system handicaps

•small brain

•faulty arrangement of brain cells and connective tissue

•mental retardation – occasionally severe

•learning disabilities

•short attention span

•irritability in infancy

•hyperactivity in childhood

•poor body, hand and finger coordination.

A sobering list!

SEPARATION FROM BIRTH MOTHER

In her book, The Primal Wound, Nancy Verrier (2009) talks about the inexplicable bond we have with our mother. That primal connection with the person who gave us life is a very misunderstood phenomenon.

Many times I have heard people say that if a baby is taken away from its mother at birth there will be no impact on the child in the future – this is not the case.

The separation from the person who gave us life is itself a trauma. If you speak to adoptees who may have been born in the 1960s when voluntary relinquishments were commonplace, you will hear the struggles they had throughout their lives with the feeling of not knowing who they were and where they came from.

In her book, Nancy Verrier quotes a story from Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst (1986 p.10):

A young boy lies in a hospital bed. He is frightened and in pain. Burns cover 40% of his small body. Someone has doused him with alcohol and then, unimaginably, has set him on fire.

He cries for his mother.

His mother has set him on fire.

It doesn’t seem to matter what kind of mother a child has lost, or how perilous it may be to dwell in her presence. It doesn’t matter whether she hurts or hugs. Separation from mother is worse than being in her arms when the bombs are exploding. Separation from mother is sometimes worse than being with her when she is the bomb.

Nancy Verrier goes on to say:

I am not suggesting that we keep a child with a mother who will set him on fire, but I am suggesting that we have to understand what we are doing when we take him away from her.

MULTIPLE HOME AND SCHOOL MOVES

Another area that impacts a child’s attachment and development is around the number of moves they endure in their lives. If a child is adopted in the UK, they will have experienced at least two very traumatic moves: one from their birth family and then again from their foster carers. That is the best-case scenario – many times children are moved around different foster carers time and time again. I have heard of children as young as ten months old having ten moves, one a month, in their very short lives. Our eldest child had five moves of nursery and school before the age of seven – the impact of that is huge on her learning and development.

For a moment, imagine your current lifestyle: your job, house, ...