Helping Students with Attachment Disorder

Leslie, a bright second grader with a dazzling smile, transferred into a new school after a change in her foster home, the third change in two years. Leslie had charmed both the office staff and her new teacher within the first few minutes of her arrival. She was curious about everything, extremely helpful and polite. Leslie gave endless compliments to every adult in the school. She spent a lot of time during recess hanging around her teacher sharing stories about how she desperately wanted to be adopted by someone who would love and take care of her. The teacher’s heart broke thinking of what a sad and lonely life Leslie had experienced.

Within a month or so of Leslie’s arrival, students’ personal items were missing, lunches were found half eaten in the cloakroom and someone had seriously injured the class pet while the class was out of the room. Leslie’s new foster mother called school to let them know of Leslie’s intensifying problems at home- out of control rages, compulsive lying, stealing, extremely aggressive behavior towards younger children and pets in the home. After a series of evaluations by a local therapist, Leslie was diagnosed as having an attachment disorder. Leslie’s teacher could not believe they were talking about the same child.

The teacher began to keep a closer eye Leslie. Eventually, the teacher found Leslie sneaking back into the classroom while the rest of the class was out at music. She was caught going through backpacks, stealing personal items and gorging herself on other people’s food. When confronted, Leslie denied it all maintaining sincere and perfect eye contact although she still had the evidence in her hands and her mouth. When Leslie’s desk was cleared out to check for other items, they found drawings of her classmates with obscenities scrawled over them. Again, she denied everything while appearing extremely sincere.

What is going on here?

Attachment Disorder

Children who experience early and sustained neglect, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse are likely to experience problems with attachment, or suffer from a series of behaviors known as Attachment Disorder. The onset of Attachment Disorder typically occurs before the age of five but can intensify throughout childhood and adolescence. Due to early trauma, the child is unable to form loving and lasting relationships with parents or primary caregivers. These students are very often misdiagnosed as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Bi-polar disorder. If a student continues through the teen years without significant interventions they are often diagnosed as Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or Conduct Disorder (CD).

As these children move into new foster and/or adoptive placements, they initially appear to be easy-going kids. As weeks move into months, their need to control their surroundings and everyone in it leads to increasingly destructive types of behavior.

Signs of Attachment Disorder

Some children may exhibit one or two symptoms. Children with attachment disorders may exhibit many or all of the following symptoms:

Suggestions for Teachers

New caregivers often become confused and discouraged as the child recoils from them but seeks out indiscriminate affection from strangers. Unsuspecting adults such as social workers, teachers, and neighbors are manipulated into “rescuing” the child from their new caregivers, who are struggling to establish themselves in the “parent” role. The most frequent mistake teachers make in working with children with attachment disorder is making judgments about the parents based on limited information during this difficult period of the child’s healing.

Therapists who work with students with attachment disorder recommend a strong and united front between teachers and parents. If a child has moved into a new foster care placement or has recently moved into a new adoptive family, talk with the child’s parents to see what transition issues they were told to expect. If a child has already been identified as having an attachment disorder, ask for specific guidance on how to handle power struggles over schoolwork and peer relations in the classroom.

Many attachment therapy techniques and interventions can seem counter intuitive to teachers who are unfamiliar with this disorder. Regular behavior plans often do not work with these children because of their extreme need to control. They will choose to sabotage positive interactions or reward systems just to maintain control over the situation. For teachers perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this disorder is that significant academic gains are often delayed until the student has made sufficient progress in attaching to his/her new parents.

Veteran parents of children with attachment disorder and attachment therapists believe there a few simple actions teachers can take to help during this difficult time for parents and child:

If teachers find themselves in a control battle with a child with attachment disorder, they need to access resources to get the help they need. Few guidance counselors have experience with providing support for children with this diagnosis. Remember that most parents and therapists of children with attachment disorder are working toward three initial goals with the child: to be respectful, to be responsible, and to be fun to be around. Your greatest contribution to working toward those goals will be to support and talk with the parents. This child can get healthy while learning to love and trust others. It will take time, but with teachers and parents working together it can happen.