TBRI Tip: Repairing Attachment
Why are the first few years of a child’s life so important when considering developing secure attachments?
TBRI teaches us that the lesson of the first year of life for a child is “who can I trust?” An infant learns who they can trust by crying and seeing who comes to meet their needs. Who feeds them when they are hungry? Who soothes them when they are scared? Who cuddles and nurtures them?
The second year of life, is typically when a child then learns “who is the boss?” As children start to test their boundaries, they learn who their health boss is. Ideally, their healthy boss is the adult who taught them the lesson of year one- “who can I trust?”
When youth come to us from hard places, the presenting issue is typically the lesson of the second year- they do not know who their boss is. Youth from hard places may appear disrespectful or willfully disobedient. They may seem as though they do not respect the instructions of those who are trying to keep them safe. When in reality, it is not that they do not know who the boss is, it is that they do not know who they can trust. They were not taught that they can trust their healthy boss and therefore do not trust that that their boss can keep them safe.
How do we repair attachment after the missed lessons in the first years of life?
We can start to repair attachment through the three TBRI principles:
- Connection- Attention to attachment needs
- Empowerment- Attention to physical needs
- Correction- Attention to behavioral needs
These three principles help both caregivers and children learn healthy ways of interacting so that they can both play an active role in the healing process.
- Connecting Principles- An attentive parent will meet a child’s needs to provide an “external modem” for regulation of physical and emotional needs. Through eye contact, affectionate touch, playful interaction, and co-regulation, caregivers provide the foundation for the child to regulate their own needs and emotions. This can be done through being attuned to both the child’s anxieties, levels of comfort, and stressors as well as their own. Connection can be done using skills of attachment that are learned through TBRI such as compromises, re-dos, and giving voice to a child.
- Empowering principles- a child who is chronically hungry has little to no capacity for learning or play because his hunger (or fear of it) dominates the rest of his thoughts and behaviors. When a child feels safe (i.e. not fearful of being hungry, being hurt, or neglected), they gain some of that capacity to play, learn, and connect back. Empowering a child can include providing regular snacks or keeping a bowl of snacks that they can grab at any time available on the counter. It can include transition time between activities and keeping a daily routine, so they know what to expect. It can also include meeting the sensory needs of the youth, providing fidgets, providing foods that are sensitive to their texture preferences, or dressing them in clothing that is soft and loose fitting.
- Correcting Principles- The objective of correcting principles is to build the social competence of a child, which can only happen after a foundation of empowerment and connection is formed. Being proactive about a child’s behavior is a great strategy to teach socially appropriate behaviors. Using verbal reminders, behavioral rehearsals, and role-plays are all great ways to be proactive with your child’s behavior. It is also important for the caregiver to level the response at the behavior and not at the child. Using playful engagement to correct behaviors is the most effective when a child has the capacity to be playful. TBRI also teaches us about Structured, Calming, and Protective Engagement strategies to help with maintaining connectedness while also guiding the child to appropriate behaviors and responses. To learn more about Correcting Responses, check out the IDEAL Response to behaviors!
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