Top Eight Don'ts For Parents of Unattached Children
1. Don't take your child's behavior personally. Doing this
leads you to lose good interaction and decreases the chance
of attachment.
2. Don't get into blaming: the social workers, the school,
your spouse, yourself. Concentrating on blaming takes away
energy needed for your advocacy for your child and healing
for all of you.
3. Don't doubt yourself. The hard work, love, and commitment
you have given to the child counts, even if things don't go
well all the time.
4. Don't always accept the first diagnosis of your child's
problem. This is especially true if you have a gut feeling
it's wrong. A second opinion is just as important for a
child's psychiatric diagnosis as for a physical diagnosis.
5. Don't give up hope of finding help or resources. There
are many helpful organizations out there, "creative funding"
to help pay for some therapy.
6. Don't go beyond your limits, take on too much. If you
overstress yourself and get physically ill or have a nervous
breakdown you won't be able to help anyone, not even
yourself.
7. Don't believe that one person, one couple can't do
anything to make a difference. "The squeaky wheel gets the
grease." If you're persistent and willing to write lots of
letters or make many calls (to legislators, the media, etc.)
you can shake things up, wake people up.
8. Don't forget to join the Attachment Disorder Parents
Network and also ATTACH (Association for Training and
Treatment in Attachment of Children, based in Phoenix, AZ),
and tell your friends. |
