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Infant Attachment
 An interview with Alice Sterling Honig, Ph.D., co-author of Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. From the January 2002 Early Childhood newsletter.Q: How can healthy relationships in early childhood affect a child's later development? A: Children who start out with secure attachments in infancy and toddlerhood rebound more quickly if they have a rough life situation later on. But if infants and toddlers have lived in dysfunctional, rejecting, unloving, indifferent, or hostile environments, then healing later on is much more problematic. Each attachment provides the infant, toddler, and young child with templates for later relationships. The cold bully in the classroom has been shown to be the child whose parent did not enjoy bodily cuddling and got quite irritated easily with the baby. The victim in the preschool classroom is often the child whose mom, when he was a baby, was quite inconsistent in handling. She may have smooched the baby and paid attention to him, but only when she felt like it. This narcissistic parenting style results in the baby's inability to trust in consistent, loving, and personally empathic care. Give your baby the strong emotionally healthy start he needs toward positive mental health. Q: What is needed to promote positive social-emotional development in infants and toddlers? A: What is needed is intimate, personal, loving, one-to-one interactions with a caregiver who feels that the baby is a delight, a joy, and is genuinely interesting to be with and interact with. Q: How can parents and caregivers build secure attachments with young children? A: Parents and caregivers can build secure attachments by spending pleasurable time in intimate bodily care, such as feeding, diapering, and crooning to sleep. During routine care, be sure to smile, stroke the little one, and talk to him or her. Tell the little one just what you are doing, such as cleaning her bottom and putting on a fresh diaper so she will feel more comfortable. If the child babbles or talks to you, respond with genuine pleasure and interest. Prolong the turn-taking talk. Spend time snuggling, looking at picture books, and sharing interests and emotional pleasure every day. Respect each child's tempo. Some eat faster and some slowly. Some like a long, leisurely bath and feel frustrated if you hurry them. Express joy and genuine tenderness as you look at your child and caress your child's fat tummy or silky hair. Tell your child, "I love you lots!" and kiss the child tenderly. Your daily bodily delight in your child and your rich verbal interactions will give a message of deep love. Your child will grow up gradually from birth onward to feel deeply and securely attached to you! Q: How can child care providers improve the mental health and emotional development of infants from dysfunctional family situations? A: Lots of bodily cuddling can help. Carry this little one in your arms a lot. Use soothing and loving low voice tones. Sing and croon as you rub the child's back and soothe him or her into sleep. Give massages! Massage strokes, such as Swedish or Indian milking of the limbs or the paddlewheel motion to soothe the tummy, will give bodily conviction of your loving appreciation of this child's body, especially for a child who has been physically abused. Remember that in the case of an abused youngster, the limbic area of the brain has learned deeply to freeze or fight or run away in response to any adult reaching out to touch, which the child may interpret as the adult wanting to hit or hurt. Start gently and nonthreateningly to caress the abused child. Do not respond to rejection! Also, do not respond to the child's trying to "make" you angry! An abused child has learned so well not to expect persistent cherishing. You need to have the courage to be persistent in giving calm and slow touches of love. Read in a snuggled one-to-one way daily to enhance the child's language and pleasure in the intimacy of book-reading, which may be at first quite unfamiliar for the abused child. If there is a social worker or therapist on staff, have them make home visits and try to heal the parental hurts that resulted in the parent frightening, hurting, or abusing the child. Dr. Honig is a professor emerita of child development at Syracuse University who is publishing Safe and Secure: Nurturing Healthy Infant/ Toddler Attachment (NAEYC) in early 2002.
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