In the last Blog, I outlined the nature of Requesting behaviors in children with attachment disorders. There appears to be two extremes;
- 1) They fail to make requested for needs they do have and
- 2) They chant and manipulate and can be very demanding.
This Blog will address some of the ways parents might find a way to cope with requesting behaviors, and a few ideas to help a child understand and over come requesting behaviors.
The most important and first thing parents of a child with an attachment disorder need to do is encourage the child to ask for even their simplest needs. Look for opportunities to put the child in the situation of having to ask, set the table and forget to put the forks on and wait to see how child responds. Wait for them to ask for forks and if you see the child is aware of the problem, but unable to make a request try to help him or her.
Parents might say something like, “I think I have everything we need, do you see anything that I might have forgotten?”
Some children may get up to find the missing forks–or their missing fork–when prompted with that kind of question. Some children may get up even before a parent asked for the childs input. Noticing there are no forks the child may just respond automatically and go to get at least their own fork. Parents might try telling this child they need to remain in their chair and if they see something that is missing ask me to get it.
- “Moms, take care of their children and family, do you see something I forgot?”
Even with a demanding child parents need to try and help the child understand that we will meet all the important needs, moms take care of the food, clothes, money, bills, cleaning and kids just need to have fun and learn how to grow up! Parents should try to meet the requests of an attachment disordered child, however some children with attachment disorders will make use of demanding and requesting simply to manipulate and control the family. Try to make it clear to the child that when they need something you will be there for them because,
- “Parents know how to take care of children.”
It’s okay to set limits and teach a child that not every request they make will be granted, and there are limits.
- “It’s okay to have an after school snack but, you may only have something from this basket before dinner time.”
It’s important to look at other solutions that might be a good substitute with a child who has an attachment disorder.
- “I can’t play the card game with you for three hours, but I can play one hand. Would you like to play one hand of the card game and then mom will get some other work done.”
Some of the side effect behaviors seen in children with attachment disorders are:
- Side Effects of Attachment Disorders Series Introduction.
- Opposition.
- Control.
- Conscience Development.
- Stealing and Jealousy.
- Thinking errors.
- Anger and Rage.
- Feeling.
- Requesting
- Decision-Making
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For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.