Durrant – attachment later on

Many parents are terrified of adolescence. They are very afraid of their children becoming teenagers because they have a stereotypical idea of them as being rebellious and defiant and impossible to control. But if we view children’s behavior in those terms, as rebellion, defiance, and control, then we shape a very different relationship with the child. If we view it as providing a warm, loving, safe environment, and all the way scaffolding the child’s learning and giving them the information that they need to understand, we are much less likely to have difficulties in adolescence because the child has learned over and over and over again through the years that we can be trusted. So when they have difficulty, if they learned early on we respond sensitively and respectfully to their communications, whether it’s crying, babbling, tantrums or whatever it is, if we respond supportively and helpfully, constructively with teaching them and using those opportunities to help them learn more about themselves, then when they are teenagers, and they have a difficulty, they are much more likely to come to us, to trust us, to respect what we have to say to expect that we will respect their challenges and their perspective, and we’ll be able to solve the problem together.