God’s Design Plan for Infants: Understanding the Attachment Cycle & the Consequences of Unmet Need

You've heard us talk a lot of about your child's need for true healing, how to create a healing environment, and how you are the most important healing agent in your child's life. But what exactly is it that needs to be healed? To understand what was broken, we need to first understand God's intended design plan for the experience of an infant and the lesson of the first year of life: trust. 

Then we need to understand that for the vast majority of children whose lives have intersected with the foster care system, they actually didn't learn trust in the first year of life but rather mistrust and their brains were wired together for protection, instead of connection.  

In this week's conversation, we lay out the problem, and in next week's conversation we'll start to build a plan together for going back to the first year of life and dealing with these unmet needs. How do we move a brain from protection mode to connection mode...more on this next week! 

 

Episode references:

Connected Child Book-Chapter 2: https://www.amazon.com/Connected-Child-healing-adoptive-family/dp/0071475001 

"What is the Attachment Cycle?" short video with cycle imagery by Empowered to Connect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azUol3w_AIY 

TBRI: Attachment Animate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIhATiiM-Pw   

Becoming Trauma Informed: Attachment, online training course https://therestorenetwork.thinkific.com/courses/attachment 

The Power of Showing Up by Daniel Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Showing-Up-Parental-Presence/dp/1524797715 

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748