The myth of instant attachment

I had really hoped that this myth of 'transfer of Attachment' was well and truly dead, but obviously not.
It just DOES NOT happen!

What does happen, if the child has had a good experience of bonding/attachment (call it what you will) with FCs, and this can happen, especially if LO has been with them since birth, then the EXPERIENCE goes with them, so that they know what such feelings and experiences are.
This then has to be built on and developed in the new relationship.
It is so like the death of a partner. There has been love/attachment there, now they have gone, but the one that is left has those memories of a good relationship----so that when a new one begins they know what it can be like, and hopefully will develop.
It all takes time.

Great article!  

Another useful one to print off for family and friends prior to your child coming home, to explain why you may ask them not to come round too often, or for too long, and how they must direct your child back to you for all personal care to re-inforce that you are his/her mum.

I agree with you Lemonade, it is something all SW should do as standard.

They should have an information/study pack for all prospective adopters going through home study and I would even go so far as to say they should have to undergo a type of exam before being approved to see how much they have read and understood of all the issues discussed during the prep. I don't mean a huge exam, but maybe a multiple choice test type thing, where SW's could score how much they had taken on board.

We have to pass a driving test to drive a car, but no one tests how much prospective adopters have actually understood.

Thanks Kstar - that's really good to know... we won't be able to keep him to ourselves for long as he used to being in a busy household with lots of children and adults coming in and out (FC's parents etc which he loves to interact with)... I think we will introduce him quite quickly to friends and family who live locally but will make sure we have lots of 'us' time every day and limit visits to an hour or so to start with ... if we do 'lockdown' I fear he will think it's rubbish living with us

I hope it will be okay to bond while doing Christmas stuff and getting to know people and then start school and build on attachment from January.. that's when the hard stuff starts I think - new school, January comedown, reality hitting 1-2 months into placement ... that also equates to bad weather and hibernating generally for most people I know Ax

I was told that my understanding of a tantrum the bbs had on day two of intros with prospective adopters undermined their 'attachment' to her.  she was screaming for the bubbles they took back to their cottage at the end of their second visit.  I was told she was screaming for them (the adopters) becoz she didn't want them to go becoz she was getting so attached to them!  no one would believe me that it really was bubbles she was screaming for. the words bubbles bubbles bubbles being screamed at 100 decibels probably should have given them a hint! scary that so many sw's (the family finder, the childs sw, the family's sw and the ff's manager) could be so utterly ignorant of basic attachment theories and the disbelieve the testimony of an experienced foster carer who had cared for this child for three years,

I can though also remember my son doing what the child from china did on day two of coming to live with me, clinging to me and not letting me out of his sight and me being so thrilled he was 'attaching' to me (spurred on by his sw's saying as much).  but it was 20 years ago in my defence and I am much better informed now as is research and as should be sw practice (but sadly isn't). my AS has some significant attachment issues that are obvious to me now and with hindsight were there from the beginning.

I'll start this by saying that we're in a bad place at the moment and therefore any of my posts may need to be taken with a pinch of salt...

Annie, for your child who is so sociable and enjoys being in a crowd, could this not be due to not having to make personal relationships with anyone when in a group. Or be a wall/mask to keep their true feelings and anxieties hidden?

Tsunami is a child who, to pepole who don't read all his very discreet signals, appears to enjoy and even thrive on loud, busy situations and lots of people. What is really happening though is that his little body is going into hypervigilant overdrive and he is absolutely terrified - but he thinks he needs to appear to be happy and coping. The effort he puts into this facade is astounding - but it is really just that, a complete pretense. Despite this total panic, he would still choose to be in a group of people or at a soft play centre than spend any time with me. He is terrified of making a close relationship with anyone so he flits (and previous schools said, 'Oh, he makes friends so well' when actually he didn't recognise them if they wore dfferent clothes!)

He is so dissociated that he is unable to recognise any of his body's signals and so truly thinks he is enjoying himself - whilst sweating profusely, heart nearly jumping out of his chest and breathing becoming more rapid.

After two years with me, he can show some of his anxiety to me when we are in private - but as soon as we are in public then the mask goes on, he shuts his emotions down and he plays to the crowd.

It is only in quiet and calm times that I truly 'see' my boys and that they can relax and begin some of the work towards feeling safe and attached. I would definitely recommend lots of calm, quiet and nurturing times in the first year - with only you doing any of the personal care of feeding, washing, cuddling etc. I know others will differ from my opinion and we all have very different children. I do just wonder sometimes how many children cover up their feelings as well (if not better) than Tsunami. To be honest, I would probably have missed the signs if it were not for Hurricane showing them more openly and then me 'becoming a detective' (advised by therapists) and finally learning Tsunami's oh so subtle signs of distress.

Sorry, not meaning to be negative.

Leo I so agree with your post.

Dd always came across as a very sociable child/ teenager and she can appear to be attached in relationships but as soon as they are not going all her way she's off-even if people were her best friends, supposedly for years. Despite claims of loving us, her adoptive family, she wants nothing to do with us now. She was described as attached to her foster carer but on leaving said she would not miss them. We have been told she is well settled in foster care now (because she is playing her confidentiality card we don't know how things are really going).

What I do know is that it makes brilliant reading on the forms when SWs declare how attached children are to their foster carers, how attached they are to their adoptive parents, how normal and settled these children are. And I do believe it can appear that way. Looking back I know I had niggling doubts about dd but I felt consistency, reassurance, adjusting my parenting, time, "claiming her", ie making the adoption legal would all help move her to a place of secure attachment. It hasn't happened and I tried all in my power to make it happen. Short of a miracle I'm not sure dd will ever attach to people in a healthy way.

The SWs job is to get children adopted. Maybe they are not trained well enough to understand the complex needs of abused neglected children. maybe they are willing to turn blind eye and deaf ear to what they see and hear about the real life experience carers and parents and children have. They will never run out of children that they need to find a home for so they have to move the children through as quickly as they can and then minimise the input they give to adoptive families.

So many of us have wanted to adopt for so long, we want to feel like a normal family and a big part of that is not feeling scrutinised by SWs having to have reviews, being just like the families we see around us with birth children. Part of me loved dd before I met her, had so much I wanted to give her, was so desperate to make it all better for her, had longed for her for so long (and that was despite having birth children to mother). Because of our good desires to parent/ love / sacrifice/ commit etc as adoptive parents we can fall victim to a system that will exploit us for its own ends.

Leo, I don't 'like' your comment because of the difficult place you are in at the moment, but because I agree with what you are saying. Hope life becomes a little easier soon x

there are children who really ARE securely attached to their foster carers, they may be few and far between but they do exist.  I have had two (out of 15 placed children), both from birth, one who had three months of parental contact (twice a week for a couple of hours and positive experience) and one who had two parental contacts very early on (current little man).  little man has an attachment to me similar to that of my daughter, sadly the only one of my three children with a secure attachment style.  but the rest have all had some issues even while presenting as 'good attachment' by sw's.  was even told that the bbs had a 'strong secure attachment' to me despite my early concerns about it and despite writing (at the same time as telling me this) that she had 'no attachment to foster carer' in her file. (just another case of sw's saying one thing while recording another)

leo, you could be describing the bbs in your post.  she seemed to others to thrive in busy noisy and chaotic places, she smiled at everyone she met, she was 'friendly' with everyone, but very very early, at only a few months old, I could see that smile did not extend to her eyes, she was breathless, she was sweaty, her heart raced etc.  and I did everything in my power to make a calm environment for her at home (once i'd sussed what the problem was and how to better manage it for her) so she had a calm base to then be able to go out and be better able to  manage herself out and about and in these noisy 'fun' places.  and I do beleive that she did enjoy them at times, but she could also get extremely stressed as well.  I got to a point where I could pinpoint the time to leave, before the enjoyment turned into anxiety and stress. I cried when the sw at her disruption meeting was going on and on about how marvellous it was that she was going to be moved to  a 'busy and lively' household.  everyone involved professionally with her (from the ss) felt she needed a busy and lively home becoz of the way she presented to them, and the calm environment I created that had such a huge beneficial impact on her overall development, (a change noted by the sw's but attributed to the 2 half days a week she spent at nursery!) this was cited as a reason to move her with the implication I was impeding her development in some unspecified way.  I've never really got to the bottom of why she was removed from my care, the answer changes so often and still isn't forthcoming, but the belief that the professionals had that this smiling, happy, sociable child needed a lively and busy home led directly to the 'concerns' held about my care becoz I was trying so hard to provide a calm and quiet home for her so she could cope when she had to go outside of it.  her health improved, her development improved, her emotional maturity improved, she began to show pain, she began to enjoy cuddles, she began to be able to sit still for more than 3 seconds, she began to play with imagination- the benefits were endless.  but sw's (without consultation with the paed or nursery or sure start staff who saw the same as me) decided that I was effectively restricting her movements, restricting her experience and therefore impeding her development. so she was removed from my care and placed in a busy and lively household.

I cannot even begin to think how she has been since then, I have heard nothing that makes me confident that the new carers understand her needs and nothing that makes me confident that she is as 'settled' as sw's tell me she is. I've heard only things that tell me she took a huge dive developmentally and that she is now a very anxious little girl again, but becoz she smiles and appears happy and is very very lively then sw's did 'the right thing' to move her to this household. i'm beyond despair for this little girl and the harm the ss have inflicted on her and of the ignorance that led to the decision to remove her and so wish someone had invented time travel so I could go back in time and put in my own application to adopt her before she was so harmed by the disrupted adoption followed closely by the disrupted foster placement.

I agree with Leo, and don't find it a negative view at all. It's realistic and needs talking about. Our own wants and needs can cloud our judgement, I know I've done that, my desire for ds to fit in with his peers and family expectations led me to ignore his needs.
'Tears of a clown' springs to mind, and when my ds said to me, aged 5 'I make people laugh because that's what they want' it floored me and made me re think how we live our lives.
He was assessed for attachment problems at 5 also, he is very avoidant but mainly secure. He doesn't want to deal with his feelings and acts the goat, appearing to love to be in the company of others. Only in the last year has he expressed his desire to stay home, no visitors, be where it's quiet, and even still I've had to catch myself and not think getting out and about is better for him.
We do get out, small chunks mainly and balance it with quiet days.
It's not always understood by others but it works for us.

Basically my SW still says that attachments need to be formed at home, where the child learns to feel secure. I honestly don't think this is the case for Starlet... She is equally happy/ distressed/ confused/ anxious/ chilled and the other roller coaster bits no matter where we are. Her attachment is to me and me alone. If I am with her, she can cope with most things. We regularly sleep at my mum's house and also my best friend's house to give me a bit if support when I am tired... Starlet loves it, it's a treat for her as she gets extra attention all round. It's especially useful at mum's as mum does all the cooking/ cleaning/ boring stuff, freeing me up to concentrate on real bonding.

Interestingly, about a week ago (five months in) Starlet said "mummy I love you" (not unusual and answered with I love you too). She then said "no mummy you don't understand, I really really love you, in real life". To me, this melted my heart far more than the first time she called me mummy or the first time she said I love you... Because I think this means she has started to process what love really is. She also said to grandma "I really like you a lot grandma, I might love you I don't know". I was so impressed with the emotional intelligence here!