The Godly Power of Attachment, the need for
It occurred to me that God designed human babies to be held, or to receive attachment. Remember little Bambi, struggling to stand up minutes after he was born? Think of mother birds, pushing their young hatchlings out of the nest to fly. Many newborn animals become self-sufficient a very short time after birth. But not humans. Our little ones are totally helpless. Most take a full year before they can even walk alone. I think that the Creator designed our babies to have to wait a whole year to walk, so they must be physically carried. Contact and touch is so important to physical, emotional, social, and brain development, that it needed to be necessary!
It’s called Attachment, and it’s a fascinating study. I was privileged to learn about this from a master teacher, Dr. Marlene Hinton.
Years ago, my brother and sister-in-law adopted three little children from an orphanage in Russia. The youngest, a little boy age 3, had bright, sparkly eyes and a fun-loving personality. But as he grew, he struggled. He had trouble in school and socially and with his brothers and sisters. Violent behaviors began to erupt, bringing chaos and stress to the entire family. They searched to find out what was wrong, and upon checking with his records from the orphanage, they discovered that their son had been taken from his mother with no time to bond and therefore had received little or no attachment at birth. As a result, his brain and all his bodily systems had not developed normally.
On the other side of the world, in my own young family, our twin sons were born 8 weeks early. They were immediately separated into two isolettes in the Newborn ICU and both babies were not thriving. Though we gave them all the attention we could each day, and I tried to pump breast milk for them, we also had to care for our 16 month and 2 1/2 year old daughters and set up a temporary home (we had literally been in transit to another state when I went into labor). As each day went by, they continued to lose weight. How I longed to bring them home and hold and love them full-time, but they wouldn’t be able to leave until they gained weight. Then, at a nurse’s wonderful suggestion, we tape-recorded our voices talking to each boy and singing to them. These recordings could be played whenever we weren’t able to be there. That did the trick! The boys began to gain weight! And soon, we could bring them home and shower them with more love and attachment!
From these two incidents, I knew somewhat of the importance of bonding and the principle of Attachment. Or thought I did! I was privileged to attend a lecture on the subject by a wonderful lady, Dr. Marlene Hinton, who earned a PhD from ASU in Education, and a mother of Eight children. I would like to share with you the marvelous things I learned, including what to do when a baby did not get Attachment at birth. But I need a week to put together my notes.
Great Things Coming in a Week! See: The Godly Power of Attachment
Also, see preventing ADHD, and bucket babies at: Stopping Attention Problems in their Tricycle Tracks!