Parents everywhere seek a close emotional bond with their babies. They also strive to develop a parenting style that works with their values. Some parenting models favor treating children as little adults to be reasoned with. Others take an approach that stresses rule-following. They all aim to create self-reliant adults who can maintain healthy relationships and go on to have families of their own.

With so much advice on different styles of parenting, how do you know what works? Sometimes, trial and error works best. Every parent tests different approaches to see what ultimately works for the parent and the children.

Attachment parenting focuses on the nurturing connection that parents can develop with their children. That nurturing connection is viewed as the ideal way to raise secure, independent, and empathetic children.

Raising and trying to heal a child with a disorder of attachment or serious attachment disturbance is clearly a daunting challenge. Typically, parents struggle alone with the overwhelming sense that something is terribly wrong but not knowing what it is or how to fix it.

Often, children with serious attachment problems manage to divide the adults in their lives, pitting the outside world against the family. This is usually a defensive strategy that helps them prevent closeness with their parents - the thing that they most fear! Sadly, this is often misunderstood by the outside world and the parents are blamed for the problems.

The purpose of this book is to try to help parents understand this very serious challenge to their children’s development and functioning while offering practical help.