Parent Child Bonding
Thesis: Bonding does not refer to mutual
affection between a baby and an adult,
but to the phenomenon whereby adults
become committed by a one-way flow of
concern and affection to children for
whom they have cared during the first
months and years of life. I. The
importance of bonding or attachment in an
individual's life. A. Friend
acquaintances B. A mother-child attachment 1. The
power and importance of
such a bond 2. How it paves the way for future
attachments II. The elements
that are important to a mother-child bond. A. Touch
B. Eye-to-Eye
contact, voice and entertainment C. Odor among other things III.
Bonding
as it relates to breastfeeding A. The importance of breastfeeding to the
bond
development IV. Bonding and the hyperactive child A. The impact of bonding
on
hyperactivity B. Dealing with hyperactivity 1. Its believed origin V.
Bonding
and Divorce The problem associated with divorce as it relates to
Children and
the bond between both parents In each person's life much of the
joy and sorrow
revolves around attachments or affectionate relationships --
making them,
breaking them, preparing for them, and adjusting to their loss
by death. Among
all of these bonds as a special bond -- the type a mother or
father forms with
his or her newborn infant. Bonding does not refer to mutual
affection between a
baby and an adult, but to the phenomenon whereby adults
become committed by a
one-way flow of concern and affection to children for
whom they have cared
during the first months and years of life. According to
J. Robertson in his book
A Baby in the Family: Loving and Being loved,
individuals may have from three
hundred to four hundred acquaintances in
there lifetimes, but at any one time
there are only a small number of persons
to whom they are closely attached. He
explains that much of the richness and
beauty of life is derived from these
close relationships which each person
has with a small number of individuals --
mother, father, brother, sister,
husband, wife, son, daughter, and a small cadre
of close friends (Robertson
1). A mother?s love is a crude offering, and
according to Kennell and Klaus.
In heir book Parent-Infant Bonding, there is a
possessiveness in it, there's
appetite in it. There is also a "Drat the
Kid" element in it, there's
generosity in it, there's power in it, as well
as humility. However
sentimentality is outside of it altogether and is repugnant
to mothers
(Kennell and Klaus 1). Some argue that attachment is one qualitative
feature
of the emotional tie to the partner. The operationalization of the
construct
(attachment) to determine the presence or absence has to be done by
some
measure of the interaction between partners, and Joe Mercer in
Mothers'
Responses to their infants with defects says: The mothers either
respond to her
infant?s cries with affectionate behaviors and evokes the
infants
interacting to suggest the infant is a central part of her life, or
she does.
The infant either shows preferential responses to the mother,
responds to her
verbal and tactile stimulation, or does not. (Mercer 17). He
further goes on to
explain that it is easier for the infant to say the tie to
the mother is absent,
but the psychological complexity of adults make it far
more difficult to say a
mother has no bond to her infant (Mercer 19).
Attachment is crucial to the
survival and development of the infant. Kenneth
and Klaus points out that the
parents bond to their child may be the
strongest of all human ties (Kennell and
Klaus 3). This relationship has
two unique characteristics. First, before birth
one individual infant
gestates within a part of the mother body and second,
after birth she ensures
his survival while he is utterly dependent on her and
until he becomes a
separate individual. According to Mercer, the power of this
attachment is so
great that it enables the mother and father to make the unusual
sacrifices
necessary for the care of their infant. Day after day, night after
night;
changing diapers, attending to cries, protecting the child from danger,
and
giving feed in the middle of the night despite their desperate need to
sleep
(Mercer 22). It is important to note that this original parent-infant
tie is the
major source for all of the infant?s subsequent attachment and is
the
formative relationship in the course of which the child develops a sense
of
himself. Throughout his lifetime the strength and character of this
attachment
will influence the quality of all future ties to other
individuals. The question
is asked, "What is the normal process by which a
father and mother become
attached to a healthy infant?" Well, since the human
infant is wholly
dependent on his mother or caregiver to meet all his
physical and emotional
needs the strength and durability of the attachment
may well determine whether
or not he will survive and develop optimally.
Experimental data suggest that the
past experiences of the mother are a major
determinant in molding her
care-giving role. Children use adults, especially
loved and powerful adults, as
models for their own behavior. Children
development literature states that the
powerful process of imitation or
modeling socially inclines children. Kennell
and Klaus explain that unless
adults consciously and painstakingly reexamine
these learned behaviors, they
will unconsciously repeat them when they become
parents (Kennell and Klaus
11). Thus the way a woman was raised, which includes
the practices of her
culture and the individual idiosyncrasies of her own
mother's child raising
practices greatly influences her behavior toward her won
infant. Bob
Brazelton in The Early Mother-Infant Adjustment says that, "It
may seem to
many that attachment to a small baby will come naturally and to make
too much
of it could be a mistake... but there are many, many women who have
a
difficult time making this adjustment...(Brazelton 10). He points out that
we
must understand the ingredients of attachment in order to help, because
each
mother-child dyad is unique and has individual needs of it's own
(Brazelton 12).
Mercers says that the developing parent attachment is
evidenced during pregnancy
as both parents fondly pat and rub the fetus
through the thinning abdominal wall
(Mercer 31). It might be argued that the
length of breastfeeding is not a valid
assessment of the strength of bond
between mother and infant since it is culture
bound. According to Violet
Oaklander in Windows to our Children, too many
variables influence a woman's
decision to continue breastfeeding to make it a
valid assessment of bonding.
She explains that a woman who discontinues
breastfeeding to return to work
four weeks after delivery can be just as bonded
as a breastfeeding mother who
takes a nine-month maternity leave. Similarly, she
explains, the initial
decision to breastfeed must be continuously used in the
assessment of bonding
(Oaklander 102). A mother's decision to breastfeed may be
an indication of
her willingness to give of herself to her infant, which is
characteristic of
bonding. However a mother who decidesto bottle feed in order
to give her
infant the best "American start" is giving of herself in
an equally healthy,
but different way. The parent-infant (father as well as
mother) relationship
is a continuing process of adaptation to one another's
needs, and parents
should be aware that all is not lost if early contact is not
possible.
However, it should emphasized that it should be the mother's choice
to
determine how much time she spends with her infant in the hospital.
"When
it is possible for parents to be together with their babies, in
privacy, for the
first hour, and throughout the hospital stay, the most
beneficial and supportive
environment for the beginning of the bonding
process is established", (Kennell
and Klaus 57). According to Oaklander, "A
most important behavioral system
that serves to bind mother and infant
together is the mothers interest in
touching her baby" (Oaklander 151).
Eye-to-Eye contact serves the purpose
of giving a real identity or
personification to the baby, as well as getting a
rewarding feedback of the
mother (Oaklander 45). The mother's voice is another
important element as
well as entertainment. Although the infant moves in rhythm
to his mother's
voice and thus may be driven to be affected by her. On the other
hand, the
infant's movements according to Oaklander, may reward the mother
and
stimulate her to continue (Oaklander 136). Another important element is
odor.
Rolland Macfarlene in The Relationship Between Mother ad Neonate,
found that by
the 5th day of life, breastfeeding infants can discriminate
their mother own
breast pad from the breast pads from that of other mothers
with significant
reliability (Macfarlene 63). Brazelton commenting on the
bonding process says:
The complexity of available systems for the mother
to use in making the initial
attachment to the baby are obviously a kind of
fail-safe system for assuring the
newborn of a caring environment. We should
be aware of the richness of these and
utilize as many as we can as we try to
lock a new mother into her baby's
uniqueness (Brazelton 79). According to
Claire Berman in her book Adult Children
of Divorce Speaks out, parents need
to understand that the bonding which will
take place in the earlier stages of
the infants life is very important in
determining the overall type of
individual that child will grow up to be (Berman
16). Mark A. Stewart in
Raising a Hyperactive Child, says: ...There are some
homes in which children
are raised so permissively or so haphazardly that they
are never taught how
to listen to someone else. Neither are they taught how to
stick to a task, or
how to control their impulsive behavior because there never
was a great bond
created between the child and parents...(Stewart 23). Stewart
continues by
pointing out that these children will, of course be at a
disadvantage when
they venture outside the home, to school or to other
children's home or in
other situations where they are injected to exert some
control over their
behavior (Stewart 23). Stewart also stresses the importance
of parents
teaching their children how to socialize and behave in public. He
says, "if
there is a bond between the parents and child there will never be
a problem
when it comes to one parent getting the child to do what?s
right" (Stewart
24). If a child has been brought up in a very unstructured
environment
without a reliable pattern to depend on, in a chaotic home
atmosphere, he
will tend to exhibit some of the traits of hyperactivity. As
stated by
Stewart there is a widespread but mistaken assumption that
behavior
determined by inheritance, or by damage to the brain cannot be
influences. He
believes that a mother's love is one of the most powerful of
all influences when
it comes to what the child will be in the future (Stewart
30). In dealing with
the problem of disobedience in the child, Stewart goes
on to say: The first and
most important step in management is, that whatever
a mother says, always must
be done?. For this reason, do not require too
much; and on no account
allow your child to do at one time, what you have
forbidden him to do at another
(Stewart 127). Claire Berman explains that it
is not only the mother-child
bonding that is important, but also the
father-mother-child that really counts.
She explains that parents need to
understand that their bonding should not be
dissolve after 2,3,5 or even 10
years, it is something that should last a
lifetime and be taken into
consideration at every bend along the long and dread
pathway of life (Berman
21). According to Susan Meyers in her book Who Will Take
the Children? makes
it clear that no one factor can be held responsible for
shaping the kind of
person one becomes or the ways in which an individual tends
to look at things
(Meyers 30). She further explains that many elements impact
upon people's
lives, from the genes we inherit to the families we are born into
and the
communities in which the child grows up (Meyers 31). As pointed out
by
Berman, "Divorce is one of the worst things that can happen between
parents
during the early years of a child?s life, not only can divorce break
all
the bonds which were previously established, but is something that can
leave the
children with lots of baggage."(Meyers 30) Berman later points out
that
when children learn that a vow or bond can be broken (and divorce writes
the end
to the marital vow), they face life with uncertainty. When they do
not receive
the nurturing that?s needed, they are likely to enter into
healthy
relationships (Berman 35). Berman states the case of a
thirty-four-year-old
woman whose parents divorced when she was thirteen. The
woman asks, "when
your parents betray you and break the bond between them and
their child, then
who do you trust?" Is it a rhetorical question? She goes on
to explain,
"for years I had the feeling that everyone was out to get me. It
took me a
long time to trust anyone." (Berman 36) Maybe now people (parents)
will
come to realize that bonding does not only refer to mutual affection
between a
baby and an adult. But it is the phenomenon whereby adults become
committed by a
one-way flow of concern and affection for whom they have cared
during the first
months and years of life.
Bibliography
Berman,
Claire. Adult Children of Divorce Speak Out. New York: Simon
and
Schuster, 1991. Brazelton, Bob. The Early Mother-Infant Adjustment.
Amsterdam:
Elsevier Publishing Co. 1973. Kennell, John and Marshall
Klaus. Parent-Infant
Bonding. Missouri: The C.V. Mosby Company, 1976.
Macfarlene, Rolland. The
Relationship between Mother & Neonate. New
York: Oxford University Press,
1978. Mercer, Joe. Mother's Response to
Their Infants with Defects. New York:
Charles B. Slack Inc., 1974.
Meyers, Susan. Who Will Take the Children?
Indianapolis/New - York:
Bobbe-Mervil, 1983. Oaklander, Violet. Windows to our
Children. Utah:
Real People- Press, 1978. Robertson, J. A Baby in the Family:
Loving and
being loved. London: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1982. Stewart, Mark A.
Raising
a Hyperactive Child. London: Harper and Row Publishers, 1973.