Scottish Attachment In Action (SAIA)
  • Home
  • Attachment
  • ABOUT
    • HISTORY
    • VALUES
    • TEAM
    • MEMBERSHIP
    • ORGANISATIONAL MEMBERS
  • ACTIVITIES
    • EVENTS
    • LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
  • RESOURCES
    • BLOG
    • LINKS
    • RESEARCH
    • RESOURCES
    • SAIA EDUCATION PROJECT
    • WHY ATTACHMENT MATTERS MORE THAN EVER
  • Contact
    • COMPLAINTS
    • PRIVACY POLICY

​Parenting Teenagers With Attachment Difficulties

1/6/2016

0 Comments

 
As parents of teenagers with attachment difficulties, we may need an extraordinary sensitivity and resilience to stay connected and engaged with our children. It is something we can’t do on our own, and yet finding help for adopted teenagers and for those who are in foster care can be difficult. We see our children struggling, but we can’t get others to recognize they need help. Sometimes help comes in an unusual form, even from a couple of rabbits.

Have you ever had an experience like this? “Mr. Woodier, what you are describing about your daughter* sounds like any other fifteen-year old.” 

I feel a wave of despair wash over me. Perhaps this teacher is just trying to reassure me, but it has the opposite effect. My daughter is struggling. Why can’t the teachers hear what I am trying to say? I have been trying to get them to understand for years.

In my experience, parenting an adopted teenager is different. I have four children, and my youngest is adopted. All four of them experienced the teen years differently. Although they all faced challenges growing up, my adopted daughter’s struggles are more intense. She gets knocked back harder by failure and rejection. 

One of the most important things I learned as a youth worker, teacher, and parent is the importance of staying connected, of not letting my children become alienated during those turbulent years.

But that’s not so easy because good parenting is a two-way thing. Dan Hughes and Jonathan Baylin, authors of Brain Based Parenting, describe this as a kind of reciprocal relationship, “When a mother and her infant feel mutual joy in each other’s presence, the infant experiences herself as capable of eliciting Mom’s joy, and the mother experiences herself as capable of eliciting her infant’s joy1.” Feeling I have helped my son with a problem or shared a joke with my daughter helps me stay positive, open, and engaged with my children especially when they are struggling. But too often, with my daughter, I am drawn into a conflict, and I am made to feel that I have nothing to offer. 

In addition, when I was going through a difficult time with my sons, I could go back and remember what they were like before they became teenagers, the cute and cuddly years. But that is not so easy with my adopted daughter. It has never been easy for her to show love. There isn’t so much of a good ‘before teenager’ time to refer back to.

I try to imagine what life is like from my daughter’s perspective. She wants her friends to accept her, but she doesn’t want to stand out at school. She wants her parents to respect her as an adult, but she still hugs a teddy bear. She worries what the future will look like and whether she will pass her exams. She can’t stop thinking about a boy at school, but she lives in dread that he will find out she likes him. No wonder she seems stressed when she gets home from school.

So as a parent I have to work even harder to stay connected to my daughter. I don’t want her to feel alienated or alone. In order to do this, my daughter and I recently became bunny rabbit foster parents. (Yes, there is a charity in Scotland for homeless rabbits). The rabbits also come with strange names. I remember one particularly difficult day, and we were both upset. I said, “Come on. You hold Hey Diddle and I will hold Nuts in May.” We sat there in silence for a few minutes. As our stress levels dropped, we began to talk about the rabbits. The angry words were quickly forgotten and life looked more hopeful again.

Parenting my daughter takes every ounce of creativity, patience, and hopefulness I have and then some more. I hold on to every good moment because I know that somewhere in there is a young person who may just need a bit longer to sort out her life. When I get little back that helps me feel like I am a doing a good job as a parent, I need affirmation from friends and family. 

So, on behalf of all those parents of troubled teenagers, we know you can’t fix everything, but don’t minimize what we are going through.  We need as much help as we can get during this really important time in our children’s lives. Finally, I love my garden but if it helps me stay connected to a very special daughter, I am willing to share it with a couple of rabbits.

*My daughter has given me permission to publish these details. “Dad, none of my friends read your blog anyway.”

Future Blogs

I am taking a break over the summer, but look for future blogs on why inclusion matters, how understanding attachment helps build resilience in young people, and an interview with Helen Minnis, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Glasgow University.

References

1. J. Baylin, and D. A. Hughes, Brain Based Parenting: The Neuroscience of Caregiving for Healthy Attachment (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2010). 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    #KeepingItReal

    The latest posts from David Woodier our chief blogger, and the SAIA Team.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2021
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    June 2018
    January 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    Categories

    All
    Acceptance
    Anger
    Attachment
    Attunement
    Belonging
    Blog
    CAMHS
    Communities Of Belief
    Conference
    Dementia
    Education
    Excluded
    Foster Care
    Grief & Loss
    Identity
    Inclusion
    Introduction
    Learning
    Looked After
    Love
    Mastery
    Matching Affect
    Mentalization
    Music Therapy
    Neurobiology
    Parenting
    Regulate Emotion
    Relational Trauma
    Relationships
    Research
    Residential Care
    Resilience
    Risk
    Second Chance Learning
    Secure Base
    Self-agency
    Self-aware
    Teenagers
    Transformative
    Turning Point
    Values
    Wondering Aloud

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
Scottish Attachment In Action - Keeping it real
Scottish Attachment in Action is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO)  OSCR registered No. SC045708
A: 
Suite 1, 213 Sandy Road, Renfrew PA4 0JY  T: 07471 472703   E: admin@saia.org.uk
[Privacy Policy | Complaints | Contact us]
  • Home
  • Attachment
  • ABOUT
    • HISTORY
    • VALUES
    • TEAM
    • MEMBERSHIP
    • ORGANISATIONAL MEMBERS
  • ACTIVITIES
    • EVENTS
    • LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
  • RESOURCES
    • BLOG
    • LINKS
    • RESEARCH
    • RESOURCES
    • SAIA EDUCATION PROJECT
    • WHY ATTACHMENT MATTERS MORE THAN EVER
  • Contact
    • COMPLAINTS
    • PRIVACY POLICY