The Truth about Bonding & Attachment
The Truth about Bonding & Attachment
Bonding and Attachment with children of all ages
In this newsletter, we provide you with notes on The Wonder of Bonding & Attachment, an episode of Parenting Beyond Discipline.
Host Erin Royer, MA, Psy., is the go-to expert on all things parenting and child development for today’s common challenges. Her parenting podcast covers way more than just discipline. She dives into topics such as self-esteem, development, health, modern parenting issues, and even education.
Read our notes below.
Topics Covered in this Summary
The Basics of Bonding and Attachment
Ways to Create a Strong Bond with Your Child
The Basics of Bonding and Attachment
Bonding is the vehicle by which we form and maintain strong attachments in relationships. This is something we do all throughout life, and therefore all throughout our children's childhood (and beyond), not just in the first few months or years.
The ways we bond will change as our children grow, and they will respond better to different ways of bonding at different times on their childhood journey.
Healthy attachment is the backbone of our children's mental health. We tend to think of attachment as something that happens early on and then it's kind of set for life, but that's not the case.
Attachment is the glue of the relationship. It's what keeps us coming back together, and bonding is the method we use to maintain that connection.
Ways to Create a Strong Bond with Your Child
As parents, we have the best influence on our child’s mental, physical, emotional, and developmental well-being and progress through our attachment, and we can achieve attachment through bonding activities.
Here are some ways that you can connect with your child at different stages.
For pregnancy and infancy:
Around 27 to 29 weeks, babies can start to hear sounds from outside the womb. Talking to the baby is great, they will hear the conversation you have with your partner and they will start to get used to both of your voices.
The earliest days are what we call the fourth trimester or the first three months outside of the womb. This is just about being attentive to babies' needs as much as possible. Feeding, warmth, and closeness. So snuggling and feeding are the two biggest needs.
Once the baby can focus on faces, this is around eight weeks. You can bond through activities like making silly faces and imitating their faces.
For babies, we want simple toys that do less so they will do more and use more imagination. Balls and toys that make noise are ideal for developing infants and toddlers.
Running commentary is another great thing for babies and toddlers. It builds vocabulary and promotes both cognitive and language development. It simply means you're just talking about what you're doing or talking about your day.
In toddler hood and preschool, the development of their minds and bodies is exploding, and there are so many fun ways to bond during these years:
We can use what's called echo expansion to build on their language skills. For example, when your child points at something and says ‘’Ball’’, you respond by saying ‘’The ball is red, the ball is rolling’’. It involves repeating what your child says and then adding to it.
Grocery store provides so many opportunities to bond. Discuss what you're buying, and what you're going to make with what you bought, and count items together. Every outing is an opportunity to learn, explore, and build a whole new vocabulary.
Older children:
Family game night. It won't last very long at age four or five, but it actually gets more fun as they get older because they can play more complicated games that adults enjoy as well.
The areas that each of the age groups is developing in and the ways that you can support that development are also bonding activities. So in addition to helping your child learn and grow, they're also a way for you to connect.
Useful Links
Follow All Star Parent on Facebook
Follow All Star Parent on Instagram
Follow All Star Parent on Twitter
Listen to the original episode