Letter on Attachment

Dear Friends and Family,

As we prepare to welcome our little Kellin into our family, we know that many of you are anxious to meet him.  And so we feel we need to share with you some information on the steps we will be taking to help Kellin to bond with us.

Kellin has had a traumatic start to life.  Unlike the newborn baby who is cared for by the biological mother whose voice and movements he already knows, Kellin was born to a mother who was unable or unwilling to care for him after his birth.  He was abandoned.  Instead of being nurtured by a loving parent who responded to his cries and kept him fed, clean, and comfortable, he was cared for in an orphanage where he was most likely fed and changed on a schedule, and left to lay in his crib most of the time.  Instead of a parent who cooed to him and smiled at him, encouraging his early efforts to communicate and interact, Kellin's cries and noises were likely ignored.  From his earliest days, he did not have the nurturing that allowed him to learn to trust adults to meet his needs.

At about ten months old, Kellin was sent from his orphanage to a foster care home (more like a group home) for children with visual impairments.  Although this was a good change for him, the change itself was likely traumatic.  Suddenly he had a new routine, new caregivers, and was probably very confused.  Here he had more nurturing and opportunities, and made great developmental gains.

Then, just about eight months later, he was suddenly removed from the foster care home and placed back in the orphanage.  Another traumatic, confusing change for a very young child.  Another new routine and more new caregivers, and most likely much less attention and stimulation.

All of these changes have surely had a profound effect on Kellin's ability to trust adults.  He has not had the opportunity to bond with a primary caregiver.  The lack of a consistent, trusted adult to bond with has a lasting impact on a child's brain and emotional health.  Kellin will have to essentially re-wire his brain to learn about love, bonding, attachment, and family.

In order to help Kellin begin to attach to his family, we will be putting limits on his interaction with others at first.  He needs to learn to be dependent on us, his parents, for everything, and to learn that we can be trusted.  We will be the only ones to hold him, feed him, change his diapers, and show him affection, at least for a while.  We may carry him around much of the time, if he will is able to tolerate that contact.  In short, we will need to do all the things for him that a new parent does for their newborn baby.  This will help him learn to trust us.

We will have to consciously parent Kellin differently than our other children.  One of the main goals when parenting most children is to foster independence, but this will not be a goal for Kellin for a while.  He needs to learn DEPENDENCE and TRUST.

Thank you all for your understanding and patience as we teach our precious little boy what is means to be loved.