Parent-Child Bond

Bond Between a Parent & Child is Forever ...

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Q: Dear April Masini,

As a soon-to-be new mother, I want to know more about creating a bond with my baby. I've read some conflicting advice in parenting books and thought I should get your take on it. I know some of my friends could do with advice about this as well. What happens if there is no bonding or attachment later on? Why does that happen? Please give me some information about this so I can make sense of it all and understand the parent-child bonding process!

Sincerely,

Nu Mommy

A:

Dear Nu Mommy, 

Congratulations for being on the way to becoming a new mother! Bonding is an important developmental step for babies that allows them to have healthy relationships for the rest of their life. It is crucial. The first bond for a baby is with the mother or a primary caregiver. The bond allows the child to trust and find comfort in a mother or mother figure. This bond allows the child to transfer that trust to other people in his or her life.

As a toddler, the child learns to say “No,” and this is a time when the child separates and individuates as well as goes out into the world (okay, the park) and attaches to friends, babysitters, and other people who the child sees on a regular basis. The more these bonds are encouraged, and the more the bonds are between people who are healthy and practice healthy living, the better chance a child has for successful adult relationships, romances, families and work relationships.

Attachment disorder is what children suffer when they do not successfully bond with one or both of their parents. This bonding time for attachment is usually from birth through early years. When children do not attach to their parents they have trouble attaching with other people in relationships throughout their lives. This includes friendships, romantic relationships and parent-child relationships where they are the parent.

In worst scenario cases, they children who do not attachment do not develop empathy, compassion or sympathy, and can be very cold blooded and calculated as well as narcissistic. Many criminals never attached as children.

That said, lack of attachment does not mean that a child will become a criminal. Especially if the parent is aware of the attachment issues and tries to remedy them.

Children from adoption situations or foster care situations have natural challenges attaching because they are not with their parents to attach to, physically. Introducing attachment to these children after they are adopted can be easy or difficult. It requires special intelligence, communication and intimacy. Parents should offer themselves to children for comfort, questions and basic needs on a consistent basis. This is a start because the children have not had consistency from a parental figure coming from an orphanage — or they have had it from someone else, and are now suffering abandonment issues.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

© 2004-2009 AskApril.com, LLC. All rights reserved. AskApril®, AskApril.com®, and Ask April® are registered trademarks owned by Masini Enterprises, Inc. This material can only be republished and redistributed if it is kept in it's original form, including, but not limited to, all AskApril branding, banners, links, books, and credits.