In a little less than two weeks, I am slated to give a presentation to the Northwest Georgia Foster & Adoptive Parent Association as part of their first “mini-conference”. I’m honored to be invited. I met their leaders at this year’s NACAC conference, where the Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) was exhibiting. They extended the invitation to speak because their membership has expressed such concern and interest in attachment issues and attachment disorder.

I’m not surprised by this, as attachment issues are common among many adoptive and foster children. Although most won’t actually meet the criteria for diagnosing as Reactive Attachment Disorder, any child who has had a break from their primary caregiver (all adoptive and foster children have) can have attachment “issues”.

So, I’m slated to speak about “Basic Attachment Issues for Children with Traumatic Pasts”. It’s not a presentation I’ve done in this format before, so I have a bit of preparation to do. And to make things a bit more challenging, I am not the only one at this conference speaking on attachment. There are two other speakers addressing Attachment Disorder before me, and several others addressing issues ranging from sexual abuse to parenting children with challenging behaviors.

So, where shall I begin?

Obviously if attendees have sat through the other two presentations, reviewing the diagnostic criteria of Reactive Attachment Disorder is a repeat. But beyond that, what can I tell foster and adoptive parents that will make a real difference in their children’s ability to attach? What would you want to hear?

Right now I’m planning on focusing on trauma, and the concept that attachment “issues” (and eventually RAD) are born of the child’s reaction to trauma…through abuse or neglect. I can’t give a presentation without talking about the neurobiology of trauma, because I think it’s a critical piece of information for parents for two reasons. First it teaches the parents that their child’s behaviors aren’t “just behaviors” that need to be corrected, but are symptoms of a true problem that needs to be addressed. And second, it arms parents with the understanding of why certain medications and interventions may or may not work for their child, because of the child’s neurobiology.

My journey out of “behavior” land and into “neurobiology” land has been a slow, hard progression. But the truth is that many of our children can’t help it – or if they can stop the behaviors, it is so hard to do so that they just give up trying. And the more we focus on the behaviors as being bad, the more the child thinks of himself in terms of the behaviors…bad. And the downward negative spiral continues.

I think another important concept for a basic presentation on attachment and trauma is the need to have a true balance between nurture and structure in your parenting. Parenting traumatized/attachment disordered children is like professional parenting and all others are strictly in the sandlot league. While a balance of strong nurture/strong structure is marvelous for ALL children, few parents are forced to address the need for strength on both sides of this scale like those parenting children with attachment and trauma issues. So, the quicker a parent understands this the better…right?

What else? If you had two hours to tell foster and adoptive parents what they need to know about parenting traumatized and attachment disordered children, what would you say?