When you are parenting a relative’s child, the process of building a healthy attachment might be more challenging than you expected it to be. Their history of chaos, loss, or trauma can leave them unable or unwilling to trust. However, creating a healthy attachment between a child and their primary caregiver is crucial to helping that child heal so they can build a healthy identity and learn how to connect in future relationships.
8 Ways to Strengthen Attachment with Your Grandchild (or other loved one’s kids)
1. Understand Your Attachment History
Creating attachments with your grandchildren begins by understanding how your childhood attachments impact your current life. Your interactions with your grandchildren or other loved ones will contribute to how their brains develop, just as your connections with your parents and grandparents impacted your brain’s development.
Consider seeking help or healing for unresolved hurt, grief, or trauma from your parental relationships. Doing the hard internal work of healing will help you stop the cycles of fear, insecure attachments, or negative interactions in your grandchild’s relationships. Many caregivers find it helpful to talk with a counselor, therapist, or spiritual leader in the community to discover their tender points.
These resources can help you understand attachment styles and their impacts:
- How a Parent’s History with Attachment and Trauma Impacts Adoption and Fostering (podcast)
- How Trauma Impacts a Child’s Development (podcast)
- How Your Attachment Style Impacts Your Adopted/Foster Kids (Article with links and resources)
2. Manage Your Expectations
Try to not compare this child with others you know or have raised. It will help if you try to let go of your ideas of how this child “should be” and focus on accepting them as they are right now. For example, your children might have been capable of managing their homework by age 11. However, this grandchild might still need support and supervision to stay on task and on track with their classmates.
Remember, your previous life shapes your expectations. When you thoughtfully examine and identify your expectations of who this child is and what they need, you can adjust or even let go of what might not be realistic for the child in front of you. When you willingly approach this child with nurturing acceptance, you can make the most of their abilities to become the best person they can be.
3. Build Emotional Intelligence
Your grandchildren (or relatives’ children) can learn the language of emotions when you model it in daily life. Try narrating your experiences and actively discussing how your feelings impact you. Ask questions to help them think about their internal state. Building emotional intelligence can be manageable through everyday activities that teach your grandchild to identify and label their emotions.
For example, when you read books together, stop and comment on what the main character is feeling. Expand the habit by pausing during movie nights, after community events, or even when you get home from a tribal ceremony. Reflecting together on what you saw and how it felt will help form the foundation of emotional intelligence.
4. Take the Long View
Raising a child – any child – is a marathon, not a sprint. As long as you have this child in your home, think about your long-term goals for their mental and emotional health. Try not to focus on the immediate inconvenience or annoyance of challenging behaviors. Instead, remember that kids who have experienced loss, chaos, or abuse can act in difficult ways. And that most of the time, even the most challenging behaviors serve a purpose – especially when they are young and still learning language skills.
Consider what motivates this child’s behavior. Look beyond what they need at the moment to stop the frustrating behavior. You can build stronger attachments when looking for the needs driving their behaviors. When you think about behavior as expressing a need or a delayed skill, you can build attachment and trust by meeting that need or teaching the skill they may not yet have.
For example, it isn’t enjoyable to try and drink your coffee in peace while your grandchild is chattering away a million miles a minute. But, when you view their non-stop talking as their need to reconnect with you after being apart all night, you can settle their anxiety more readily. Try asking them a few questions about the dream they are telling you about. Share your crazy dream. Ask what they want to do after lunch today. Responding to their need for connection resets their sense of safety and reassures them of their place in your heart and mind.
Granted, some behaviors are more challenging to discern. However, engaging with curiosity will be a crucial tool to help you take the long view of raising these kids.
5. Create a Culture of Compassion
Your grandchild may often feel “different” from the rest of the family or your community for many valid reasons. They may struggle with missing their parents and not being home for now. They might feel shame or guilt for feeling relieved not to be home. Your grandchild might have significant learning struggles that make them feel different. Even if their peers have similar challenges, they might believe their situations are too different to overcome.
Handling their feelings of being different with honor and respect tells your grandchild they are safe with you. Your acceptance of their differences – or of feeling different – makes them feel accepted and celebrated. Your curiosity (again) and openness about what makes your grandchild unique and precious will build their self-confidence. Honoring the differences in your grandchild’s experiences also builds safety and trust and deepens attachment.
6. Focus on Shared Stories
To build a stronger attachment between you and your grandchild, consider an experience you shared and talk about what you each remember. When you share stories, focus on the emotions rather than the accuracy of details or the timeline. Sharing stories brings common emotions to the surface and normalizes your wide range of feelings. It also helps your grandchild feel connected to you.
For example, watch an inspirational, uplifting movie with your grandchild. Discuss the emotions you felt during the film, even comparing or contrasting each other’s feelings. Focus on the connections between you from that movie.
7. Create a Family Book
Your family book should include all family members, with a “chapter” for each member to add stories, images, and words about themselves. You can consist of chapters for significant family milestones, vacations, traditions, and more. Every family will have its own spin on their family book, but the crucial ingredient is to include everyone’s contributions. You are crafting your family’s story, and each of you should share experiences and memories without expectations for how or what is shared.
When the book is complete, go through it together. Talk about each other’s memories. Spend time unpacking the challenges or painful moments that are contributed. Each family member should feel free to express their unique responses to each other’s additions. Trust will deepen when you can accept the hard with the good. Keep the book out where it is easily accessible for your grandchild to look through it as they need to connect with your family story.
8. Hold Family Meetings
Your grandchild will benefit from regular conversations to share what they think and feel about upcoming events, recent happenings, the family schedule, or whatever else is essential to your family rhythms. One of the benefits of a weekly family meeting is creating a habit of consistent communication between you. No one feels left out of the loop, and it’s a tangible way to say that everyone belongs. Regular meetings can strengthen your attachment with your grandchild by giving an official place for everyone to be seen and heard. You can make them fun and engaging so everyone owns the intention.
Practically speaking, family meetings are also an effective tool to teach kids how to manage time and responsibilities with each other. You can foster teamwork and unity, which will give them a sense of confidence and security in your home.
Build Attachment One Step at a Time
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of helping your loved one learn healthy attachment skills. If you are struggling with disconnection, pick just one of these eight tips. Start with one that feels easiest or most achievable. Work on it until you have it “down pat,” and then use the sense of accomplishment to boost you to try another one.
Finally, remember that none of these parenting tips are “once and done” tips. So, feel free to keep trying new ways to implement them in ways that work best as your children grow and change. Again, raising kids who have experienced trauma and loss requires a long view approach.
*Source:
2015 CreatingaFamily.org webinar with Dr. Dan Seigel for adoptive parents, called Importance of Parental Attachment Styles in Adoption. However, much of this information on attachment can also be found in his book, Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive (10th Anniversary Edition).*