Suggested reading and resources
See below a list of books and resources that may be helpful to you in your situation. Most of these should be available to buy new or second-hand online, on websites like Amazon.
Books
Attachment and therapeutic parenting
A guide to attachment and information on how attachment can affect peoples’ lives.
This book guides childcare professionals through attachment theory and provides techniques for caring for children with attachment difficulties. It explains what attachment is, what different patterns of attachment look like in children and young people, how early attachment experiences affect their lives, and how this understanding can help childcare workers to develop therapeutic ways of caring. By understanding these issues, childcare workers are better equipped to help and support the troubled children they care for. This book shows how to promote recovery through secure base experiences in a therapeutic environment and provides solutions and methods to tackle challenging and problem behaviour, anger and the effects of trauma in children with attachment problems. This essential book will be invaluable to professionals such as residential carers, social workers and foster carers who work in a therapeutic environment with vulnerable and troubled children and young people.
This book presents a short and accessible introduction to what ‘attachment’ means and how to recognise attachment disorders in children. The author explains how complex problems in childhood may stem from the parent-child relationship during a child’s early formative years, and later from the child’s engagement with the broader social world. It explores the mindset of difficult and traumatised children and the motivations behind their apparently antisocial and defensive tendencies. A Short Introduction to Attachment and Attachment Disorder includes case vignettes to illustrate examples, and offers a comprehensive set of tried-and-tested practical strategies for parents, carers and practitioners in supportive roles caring for children
Attachment is a word used to describe a simple idea – the relationship with someone you love or whose opinions are important to you – so why is so much of the language relating to attachment so obscure, and why is it so challenging to help children who lack healthy attachment bonds? ‘Attachment in Common Sense and Doodles’ aims to bring some clarity and simplicity to the subject. Providing grounded information and advice accompanied by a series of simple ‘doodles’ throughout, it explains attachment in language that is easy to understand and describes how to apply this information in everyday life. It describes how the attachment patterns in children who are adopted or fostered differ, summarises the latest research in the field and provides advice on how to repair attachment difficulties and to build create secure, loving relationships. Covering all of the ‘need to know’ issues including how to spot attachment difficulties, how build resilience and empathy and responding to problematic behaviour, this book will be an invaluable resource for families and professionals caring for children who are fostered, adopted or who have experienced early trauma.
Attachment is at the heart of family life and at the heart of foster care and adoption. Attachment theory and research provide a vital developmental framework for making sense of the behaviour and relationship strengths and difficulties that children bring from their complex backgrounds. It also offers a valuable resource for understanding the kind of caregiving in foster care and adoptive families that can enable children to feel more trusting, confident, competent and secure.
Kate Cairns is a social worker by profession who has also, over a 25-year period and along with her husband and birth children, fostered 12 other children who remain part of their family group. In this compelling book she draws on the wealth of her personal and professional experience to offer a vivid glimpse into family life with children who have experienced attachment difficulties, loss, abuse and trauma, and shows in a range of everyday situations how the family responded to the powerful feelings and difficult behaviours the children displayed. Drawing on knowledge and ideas that helped her make sense of this experience, the author includes suggestions for carers and professionals on what may be observed in children with unmet attachment needs and post-traumatic stress disorders, and what can be done to promote recovery and develop resilience.
Children who have experienced trauma, loss or separation early in life need more than just special care and attention; they need to be parented with love and security in a way that allows them to rebuild emotional bonds. Based on Dan Hughes’ proven ‘PACE’ model of therapeutic parenting, this book provides practical guidance to parents and carers with crucial advice on how to strengthen attachment and trust.
This book shows how to work successfully with emotional and behavioural problems rooted in deficient early attachments. In particular, it addresses the emotional difficulties of many of the foster and adopted children living in our country who are unable to form secure attachments. Traditional interventions, which do not teach parents how to successfully engage the child, frequently do not provide the means by which the seriously damaged child can form the secure attachment that underlies behavioural change. Dr Daniel Hughes maps out a treatment plan designed to help the child begin to experience and accept, from both the therapist and the parents, affective attunement that he or she should have received in the first few years of life. All children, at the core of their beings, need to be attached to someone who considers them to be very special and who is committed to providing for their ongoing care. Children who lose their birth parents desperately need such a relationship if they are to heal and grow. This book shows therapists how to facilitate this crucial bond.
This excellent book looks at the attachment and development of very young children in the fostering and adoption situation. It deals sensitively and practically with the young child’s “hurts” to help adopters and foster carers understand and cope with the many traumas they may experience in integrating a young child into their family. Caroline Archer is a real adoptive parent speaking from experience so this book provides good, practical advice and encouragement for the mothering figure when things are not following the normal attachment and development patterns… This highly readable book is highly recommended for everyone fostering or adopting very young children.
DDP is an attachment-focused treatment for children and adolescents who experience abuse and neglect and who are now living in stable foster and adoptive families. Its central interventions are influenced by enhanced knowledge about the structure and functions of the brain, as well as the latest findings regarding developmental trauma and the related attachment problems it brings.
This brief 52-page guide introduces readers to attachment – the need that all babies have to know that someone will share their fears and joys. It uses the analogy of “sabre tooth tigers & teddy bears,” in order to make the concepts of attachment accessible to as wide an audience as possible. The public often finds information about attachment both compelling and sobering. It gives them unexpected glimpses into their own lives, and its relevance for policies quickly becomes glaringly obvious.
Providing straightforward answers to these complex questions, The Simple Guide to Child Trauma is the perfect starting point for any adult caring for or working with a child who has experienced trauma. It will help them to understand more about a child’s emotional and behavioural responses following trauma and provides welcome strategies to aid recovery. Reassuring advice will also rejuvenate adults’ abilities to face the challenges of supporting children.
This ground-breaking book explores how the attachment-focused family therapy model works at a neural level. Investigation of the brain science of early childhood and developmental trauma offers clinicians new insights-and powerful new methods-to help neglected and insecurely attached children regain a sense of safety and security with caring adults.
This book offers a thorough examination and discussion of the evidence on attachment, its influence on development, and attachment disorders. In Part One, the authors outline attachment theory, the influence of sensitive and insensitive caregiving and the applicability of attachment theory across cultures. Part Two presents the various instruments used to assess attachment and caregiving. Part Three outlines the influence of attachment security on the child’s functioning. Part Four examines the poorly understood phenomenon of attachment disorder. Presenting the evidence of scientific research, the authors reveal how attachment disorders may be properly conceptualised. Referring to some of the wilder claims made about attachment disorder, they argue for a disciplined, scientific approach that is grounded in both attachment theory and the evidence base. The final part is an overview of evidence-based interventions designed to help individuals form secure attachments
Infant development
The first three months of a baby’s life is an outside-the-uterus period of intense development, a biological bridge from fetal life to prepare for the real world. The fourth trimester has more in common with the nine months that came before it than with the lifetime that follows. Susan Brink examines crucial dimensions of new-born development, such as eating and nutrition, bonding and attachment, sleep patterns, sensory development, pain and pleasure, and the creation of foundations for future advancements.
It’s time to re-write the rule book on raising a child. Based on over 700 scientific studies into children’s development, award-winning author and child psychotherapist Dr Margot Sunderland explains how to develop your child’s potential to the full.
Find out the truth about popular childcare tactics, how touch, laughter and play build emotional wellbeing for life, and the strategies for effectively dealing with temper tantrums and tears.
Essential for any parent: a practical parenting book which give you the facts, not the fiction, on the best way to bring up your child.
Why Love Matters explains why loving relationships are essential to brain development in the early years, and how these early interactions can have lasting consequences for future emotional and physical health. This second edition follows on from the success of the first, updating the scientific research, covering recent findings in genetics and the mind/body connection, and including a new chapter highlighting our growing understanding of the part also played by pregnancy in shaping a baby’s future emotional and physical well-being. Sue Gerhardt focuses in particular on the wide-ranging effects of early stress on a baby’s or toddler’s developing nervous system. When things go wrong with relationships in early life, the dependant child has to adapt; what we know now is that his or her brain adapts too. The brain’s emotion and immune systems are particularly affected by early stress and can become less effective. this makes the child more vulnerable to a range of later difficulties such as depression, anti-social behaviour, addictions or anorexia, as well as physical illness.
You Are My World gratefully acknowledges the profoundly shaping influence that a parent’s love and attention have on a baby’s mental and emotional development. … Featuring a die-cut frame in which parents can place a photo of their own child, You Are My World will become a treasured family keepsake.
Looked-after and adopted children
This book shows how to work successfully with emotional and behavioural problems rooted in deficient early attachments. In particular, it addresses the emotional difficulties of many of the foster and adopted children living in our country who are unable to form secure attachments. Traditional interventions, which do not teach parents how to successfully engage the child, frequently do not provide the means by which the seriously damaged child can form the secure attachment that underlies behavioural change. Dr Daniel Hughes maps out a treatment plan designed to help the child begin to experience and accept, from both the therapist and the parents, affective attunement that he or she should have received in the first few years of life. All children, at the core of their beings, need to be attached to someone who considers them to be very special and who is committed to providing for their ongoing care. Children who lose their birth parents desperately need such a relationship if they are to heal and grow. This book shows therapists how to facilitate this crucial bond.
The Lives of Foster Carers analyses the contradictions, conflicts, and ambiguities experienced by foster carers arising from the inter-penetrations of public bureaucracy and private family life. Topics covered include: social policy pertinent to childcare, the history of foster care service, available literature on the experience of foster carers, public versus private domains in foster care, motivations and roles of foster carers, how foster carers perceive themselves and their foster children. Based on a wide range of literature and in-depth interviews with forty-six foster carers, this book provides a valuable insight into the concerns, processes and experiences of foster carers in the UK.
How foster carers and adoptive parents can make the most of the help they can get from teachers and support staff. “As foster carers and adoptive parents my wife Alex, and I were always greatful for the help we get from teachers and all the support staff at our children’s schools. The more they knew about the children the less likely they were to be surprised by some of their behaviour and they’re better equipped to help them get the best results.” A guide to Attachment is written by fosterer John Timpson CBE, who through simple language and easy-to-understand illustrations, helps explain the behaviour of looked after children.
This book outlines how services can effectively detect, prevent, and treat mental health difficulties in this vulnerable population. Responding to increasing evidence that standard child and adolescent mental health services are poorly matched to the mental health service needs of children and young people who have been in foster care, this book provides expert guidance on the design of specialised services. The first part provides an overview of these children’s mental health needs, their use of mental health services and what is known about the effectiveness of mental health interventions provided to them. The second part presents some recent innovations in mental health service delivery, concentrating on advances in clinical and developmental assessment and treatment. The final part confronts the challenges for delivering effective mental health services in this area.
Most adopted children and their families will, sooner or later, encounter the challenges of dealing with unresolved attachment issues or early traumatic experiences.
New Families, Old Scripts is an accessible introduction to understanding these challenges and helping children and their families to develop a shared language and understanding of one another. Steeped in the experience of the authors, the book offers a wealth of practical guidance and intervention in a no-nonsense style that will be readily understandable to both families and the professionals who work with them. Case examples bring the issues to life, while sample letters addressed to the parent offer sensitive, jargon-free advice on the issues they are likely to encounter – whether it be dealing with anger and aggression, understanding sibling issues or how to react to sexualised behaviour. The authors also explain some of the theoretical background to trauma to encourage a better understanding of the relationship between trauma, attachment and development.
This ground-breaking text offers a comprehensive and penetrating account of how social developmental perspectives and attachment theory can illuminate practice in the field of child protection and family support. Drawing extensively throughout on fascinating case-study material, the text moves from an introduction to the key theories to a detailed outline of the main methods and processes. It offers a carefully developed and systematically tested practice and assessment model for professionals in this challenging and complex area and, as such, will be an invaluable resource for students and professionals alike.
Teenagers and adolescence
Contrary to popular (parental) opinion, teenagers are not the lazy, unpleasant louts they occasionally appear to be. During the teenage years the brain is undergoing its most radical and fundamental change since the age of two. Nicola Morgan’s carefully researched, accessible and humorous examination of the ups and downs of the teenage brain has chapters dealing with powerful emotions, the need for more sleep, the urge to take risks, the difference between genders and the reasons behind addiction or depression. The revised edition of this classic book contains important new research, including information on mirror neurons and their effect on the teenage brain.
Charlie Taylor’s straight-talking, no-nonsense approach guides you away from knee-jerk parenting towards a more proactive and positive relationship with your teenager. With particular emphasis on the power of praise – the basis of his acclaimed 6 to1 strategy – and planning in advance for behaviour or communication hotspots, every parent can break the miserable pattern of constant confrontation, endless negotiation and repetitive nagging. With the insights and methods found in Divas and Door Slammers – including a handy Troubleshooting Guide that looks at such issues as under-age drinking, sex, drugs and problems at school – every household with teenagers can quickly transform from havoc to harmony.
From curfews and cliques to sex and drugs, bestselling authors Faber and Mazlish give parents and teens the tools they need to communicate and navigate the often stormy years of adolescence.
We often joke that teenagers don’t have brains. For some reason, it’s socially acceptable to mock people in this stage of their lives. The need for intense friendships, the excessive risk-taking and the development of many mental illnesses – depression, addiction, schizophrenia – begin during these formative years, so what makes the adolescent brain different? Drawing upon her cutting-edge research in her London laboratory, award-winning neuroscientist, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains what happens inside the adolescent brain, what her team’s experiments have revealed about our behaviour, and how we relate to each other and our environment as we go through this period of our lives. She shows that while adolescence is a period of vulnerability, it is also a time of enormous creativity – one that should be acknowledged, nurtured and celebrated. Our adolescence provides a lens through which we can see ourselves anew. It is fundamental to how we invent ourselves.
Written by an experienced adoptive parent, this clear, sensitive and practical handbook is designed to encourage and support adoptive and long-term foster parents, their children and adolescents. An adopted child may well have suffered abuse, neglect or inconsistent parenting in the past; he or she will certainly have experienced painful separations and losses. These early traumatic experiences, often expressed in emotional and behavioural problems within the family, can conceal a broad range of subtle alterations to the brain and nervous system of the developing child. They may become increasingly problematic as the youngster approaches the developmental challenges of adolescence.
Everyone troubled by teens of their own will find consolation in this book. Dr. Peter Marshall, child psychologist, father of five and former teenager, provides an abundance of practical information, advice and observations on all walks of adolescent and pre-adolescent life. The result is a fun and easy-to-read book for the salvation of beleaguered parents everywhere. Among other things, Dr. Marshall discusses the transition from childhood to adulthood and the drive for independence that can wreak havoc on the whole family.
The teen years can be daunting for any parent. But if you are the parent of a teen who lashes out or engages in troubling behaviour, you may be unsure of how to respond to your child in a compassionate, constructive way. In this important book, two renowned experts in teen mental health offer you evidence-based skills for dealing with your teen’s out-of-control emotions using proven-effective dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT). Helping your teen to effectively deal with their feelings now can have a lasting, positive impact on their future. After all, honing skills for emotion regulation will act as a foundation for your teen’s overall mental health. This book will help your teen gain awareness of their emotions, and offers tools to help them choose how to respond to these emotions in effective ways.
An honest insight into the rollercoaster reality of therapeutically parenting teenagers.
Raising any teenager is tough, but raising teens who have experienced trauma in their early years is a whole different – and more difficult – ball game. Adoptive parent Sally Donovan is here to answer every question you’ve ever wanted to ask about therapeutically parenting teenagers, and a whole lot more besides.
Therapeutic parenting is equal parts love, commitment, determination, and realism, and Sally writes about it all with equal parts blazing wit, tear-jerking honesty, and wisdom. Read this book to hear a voice speaking from experience – and above all, the heart – about everything to expect from therapeutically parenting your teens.