Mary Ainsworth developed John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory further in the 1970s. In pioneering “Strange Situation” study, researchers observed toddlers between the ages of 12 and 18 months as they responded to a situation in which they were briefly left alone and then reunited with their mothers.

Ainsworth categorized three major styles of attachment: secure, ambivalent and avoidant.

In the study, Ainsworth found when children were briefly separated from their mothers (caregivers), they displayed minimal distress because they seemed to feel assured that the mother would return. Termed as securely-attached children, they sought reassurance from their mothers when they were frightened because they had experienced comfort being offered when needed.

In contrast, ambivalent attached children became very distressed when a parent left and it was suggested that it was a result of poor maternal availability. These children had learned they couldn’t depend on their mother to be there when in need.

For children with avoidant attachment, they had no preference between a caregiver and a complete stranger and they tended to avoid the parent. This might be a result of abusive caregivers or being neglected and the children were punished for being dependent. These children learnt not to seek help in the future.

Such finding would have been most helpful to many ignorant parents if it is introduced during ante-natal classes. I have observed that many children in my midst are, unfortunately, with ambivalent and avoidant attachments. Most of them have been brought up by neighbours (stay-at-home mums) whilst their primary caregivers work outside the home, child minders at day-care centres who have more than a dozen of children in their care and grandmothers who live in another state.

Further research suggests that early attachments could have serious effect on the children’s later relationships. However attachment styles presented in adulthood are not necessarily the same as in childhood.

Securely-attached children tend to grow up as adults with a healthy self-esteem, maintain a solid romantic relationship and the ability to trust others. They find it relatively easy to get close to others and are comfortable in a give-and-take relationship . They usually don’t worry about being abandoned or someone getting too close.

In contrast, avoidant adults are rather uncomfortable getting close to others because they find it difficult to trust others completely. They have difficulty allowing themselves to depend on others. They get nervous when someone gets too close and they often feel their partners wanting more intimacy than what they could offer. I wonder if some of my friends who purposely choose to remain single and unattached intimately could have been children with avoidant attachment.

Anxious/ambivalent adults, on the other hand, find that others are reluctant to get as close as they would like. They often worry that their partner doesn’t really love them or won’t want to stay with them. They want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away. If you ever hear someone introducing their spouse/partner as their “other half”, you would wonder whether they realize that they could have been an ambivalent attached child.

Interestingly, there are counselors in the UK who specialize in couple relationships using creative arts therapy to have a better insight into problems relating to attachment issues. I was fortunate to have had a first-hand experience with Prof. Monika Jephcott (of Academy of Play and Child Psychotherapy) during the Play and Creative Arts certificate course last year. In an exercise using eight bits of plasticine of two different colours, one of the colour representing myself, I moulded the bits according to four scenarios:
• Me and my primary carer (how she/he might have felt)
• Ideal relationship with primary carer
• Who is closest to me now?
• How would I like it to be?

Through this powerful exercise, I had a better understanding of the Attachment Theory and of my relationship with my spouse. Although I had grown out of my attachment style in childhood to be a securely-attached adult (the third scenario), my last moulded bits were interpreted as a “regression”. It reflected a conflict I was having with my spouse at that time. As it had surfaced to my awareness, I was able to work it through with a lot of self-reflection and sharing with him. It was a potent balm for a deep wound  resulting in a giant leap in self growth.

While researching more about John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, I found the following advice given by Dr Ann Corwin on simple ways to form attachment with your baby. Great tips for new parents; however it is still not too late if your child is above 6 years old or 66!

In the past decade since the birth of my daughter, I have read countless of books and attended courses on parenting and child development. The one that has led me to a new understanding of child development is last November’s certificate course on Play and Creative Arts conducted by Professor Monika Jephcott (CEO) of UK-based Academy of Play and Child Psychotherapy. Being a parent now takes on a whole new direction. Let me share with you the Attachment Theory by John Bowlby and later the role of neuroscience in parenting.

Through his research in the 1950s and 1960s, John Bowlby believed the first bonds formed by children with their mothers/primary caregivers would have a tremendous life-long impact. He said by keeping an infant close to the mother, it would improve the baby’s chances of survival. The central theme of attachment theory is that mothers who are available and responsive to their infant’s needs establish a sense of security. The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable, which creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world.

So what would become of children who don’t form secure attachment in early childhood? Many studies evolved from Bowlby’s theory and there are findings of insecure attachments’ negative impact on behaviour in later childhood and throughout life. For want of labels to help comprehension, children said to have oppositional-defiant disorder, conduct disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder frequently present attachment problems, possibly due to early abuse, neglect or trauma. Psychologists suggest that children adopted after six months old have a higher risk of problems with attachment.

Here I would like to share with you a video summarizing Bowlby’s Attachment Theory. I know it doesn’t do justice to all those years of research but I think it’s enough to give us a glimpse into what are the effects of “maternal deprivation” - as coined by Bowlby himself. Naturally in today’s terms, it would better be referred as primary caregiver (fathers, nannies, etc). Terminology aside, what is important is to understand the core of Bowlby’s message.

Although my friend sent me two links to Yoo Ye Eun’s sterling and inspirational performance (one of which I posted in my previous post), I didn’t check out the second video until much later. I was pleasantly surprised with Ye Eun’s mother’s decision. Here, spare a few minutes and watch the gem of a lesson:

Heck, I thought, she should go for the third round and try to win more of the prize money. Why? So that Ye Eun could have the best teachers and better opportunities. But this courageous and larger than life woman (I am certain now, she is really on the right path to sainthood!) taught me a beautiful lesson in her simple reply: “We shall stop our challenge at this stage. We want to keep good memories from this. It would not be good if this becomes a burden to Ye Eun. We will end it here, and let this be a beautiful memory. We are very grateful to Star King.”

Had I been in her place, I would have succumbed to my greed. My excuse would have been: I was doing it for my child. The money would give her a head start. And, hey, I have got a genius in my hands. The world should see her.

Ye Eun’s mother humble response taught me two powerful lessons: unconditional love that transcends greed, fame and recognition. In other words, the practice of unconditional love that transcends the EGO. And the grace of gratitude.

Bless her and Ye Eun. What a great mother and an inspiration to all.

When I was pregnant with my third child at 36, my obstetrician asked if I wanted an ammiocentesis. I firmly said no. But as soon as she said, “If your baby is Down, would you keep it?” I hesitated and stammered a “yes”. Why wasn’t my reply a spontaneous “no”? Could it be that I wasn’t really 100 per cent sure I would keep my baby? Or was I reacting to her referral of my baby as “it”?

I drove home after my visit in deep thought. I knew deep down, I would keep and raise my baby (and no, baby was not an “it”) regardless. Despite that conviction, I still had a wee fear and some anxiety about a possibility. Later that day, I shared my anxiety with my husband. Not only did he assure me of his commitment to his role as a parent, he reminded me to stay positive. I am fortunate to have partner like him. Perhaps the woman who gave birth to blind girl some years ago in South Korea wasn’t as lucky. Maybe her predicament was beyond her competence. She gave up. She gave her baby up at birth. Five years on, today, that little girl is the pride and joy of another woman. A courageous woman whose love is truly unconditional. To raise one own offspring who has special needs requires tenacity (and a host of other attributes) but to adopt and accept a child who has a disability, to me, is a notch up the parenthood scale (ha, as if there is one in existence - but I am sure you know what I mean). Dare I even suggest, it is another possible path that leads to sainthood?

I would like to share with you this beautiful story of a five-year old Korean girl and her mother. I have watched this video many times and each time, it always tug at my heart strings and get those tear ducts working without fail!

The moment we, mothers, open our eyes each morning, we spring into action. Things get done on auto-pilot mode. In our busyness, we often neglect the tiny part within that needs nurturing and some pampering. For some mums at my youngest son’s playgroup, they rejuvenate with a massage at the spa, coffee with a girlfriend or just a soak in the bath. Unfortunately for me, I could only “drool”.

By some stroke of luck, a few months ago I found myself in a 10-day meditation retreat. Since becoming a mother a decade ago, there had only been three times I was away from my children – the longest trip was over four nights. Guilt was mostly the chief cause. I never went anywhere on my own before the retreat. Ten years of living as a wife and mother, I was getting weary. Don’t get me wrong. I was (still am) happy with my marriage and three children. I just felt a certain “emptiness” within – sort of like an inner child that wanted some much needed attention.

It wasn’t easy the first few days in the retreat and it was worse in the nights – I was missing my youngest, three years old, who was still co-sleeping with us.

As talking was not strongly encouraged and because the women who shared my room were strangers to me, it became easy for me to slip into a different role – just being me!

In those 10 days, I was neither a mother, wife, daughter, sister, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, granddaughter, a friend – just me! Not living to anyone’s expectations; just my own, or not to live to any expectations.

There was no need to rush to do the things I had to do to fulfill all my roles. It was indeed a relief (I must confess, the relief only came towards the sixth day) – a respite from all the busyness of a worldly life.

In the 10 days of silence (except for the 10-minutes of daily reporting to the meditation teachers), I had a pervasive glimpse of insight: how my thoughts had shaped my personality.

The nature of my dealings with others; my judgements; my critical thoughts about everything and those around me. I came to understand that the judging, criticizing, blaming could be put to an end. By noting the thought process, I experienced that nothing was permanent – everything was changing and in a state of flux.

When the judging, criticizing, blaming stopped, I felt like a weight had been lifted off. Something got thrown off. The drama of my interactions and disharmony and discord with others, that had happened oh, so very long ago, returned to taunt me. When I finally got weary of the never-ending soap opera in my mind, in that moment I made a resolve to put in a little more effort into the noting of the thought process. The moment I became alert to the story of the drama, it came to an abrupt end. It was like, a snap decision to turn off the TV. Relief. Peace.

The retreat had been an excellent way for me to return to my inner being; to be in touch. And, to understand the role of the ego in our lives.

This woman is an inspiration to us all!

Amazing Woman

My friend, Sue was aghast when her husband presented their firstborn’s birth certificate after his return from the birth registration department.

“Are you nuts? How can you accept this?” she asked exasperatedly. On the document, it clearly stated the name of their child as: Cassandra Lee May Ling A/P Lee Chu Sing.

(In South East Asia, A/P is an abbreviation for “daughter of” and it is typically used for ethnic groups who take on their fathers’ first names as surnames. It is redundant for the Chinese who place their family’s name before their given names.)

Sue’s husband is a successful corporate lawyer and poring over legal documents is his forte. We may laugh over this. But all of us are like him when we enter into the unknown world of parenthood. We are trained and educated for excellence in our careers and even at play or leisure, we find out all about the do’s and don’ts before we wet our feet.

But being a parent is another ball game altogether. Not even our mothers could have prepared us well for the task of raising children. To many, having children is just another part of ‘The Cycle Of Life’. Our duties are to feed them, clothe them, love them and educate them. Is a parent-child relationship merely a giver-receiver relationship?

Think about it. Wouldn’t you agree that you are a better person because of your children? The life lessons my children has taught me from the very beginning are beyond anything I could learn from books.

The very first lesson for me is patience. Oh yes, all these years, I have learnt well that patience is a result of not having any expectations. Patience also means going with the flow. With patience, I also learnt to be more aware of my thoughts and to respond positively to my daily challenges. My second child gave me these invaluable lessons through unreasonable tantrums right from his 18^th month till his fourth year.

The ultimate lesson on patience came with the birth of my youngest child. He timed his birth up to the very moment I felt impossible to “hold on” further. Other than a pessary to soften the cervix (the birth was induced at 38^th week as I was on insulin for gestational diabetes), I refused epidural and pethidine because I wanted to be aware of every single moment during the birth.

And my baby gave me exactly what I wanted: moment-to-moment awareness for 22 and half hours in the labour ward. When he finally nudged his head out, I was completely in touch with every single sensation and I felt (surprisingly) peaceful.

My baby taught me the virtue of patience with grace. He wouldn’t holler when he was hungry; just a slight gurgle and he would wait without a fuss when I kept him waiting – even to the extent of waiting for more than a minute while I eased myself. He is now three; because of his sweet nature, the terrible-two stage was non-existent. His patience is truly remarkable.

I still struggle to teach my second child (who is four years older) delayed-gratification but my youngest seems to embody patience. He does have his moments of anger and crying tantrums (especially when his TV time quota is up for the day) but he bounces back to his normal self in less than 10 minutes. He would come round, teary-eyed and says, “I am sorry Mummy for tantrum (ing). Please forgive me.” After a hug and some smooches, he would happily get on.

Then there is this huge lesson on self-love. It has been so easy to fall in love with my children. I never had dolls to play with while growing up so my babies were my living dolls. One night while I was lying next to my then 10-week old daughter after a round of cuddling and singing, I was locked in her gaze for a few minutes. I felt a tremendous sense of love emanating from her bright round eyes. For that moment in time, I felt truly loved. But it also hit me hard. Did I love myself as much as my daughter loved me?

I knew deep down, the answer was a big no. When I pondered further, I realized how important it was to love and accept myself. Without self-love, the inevitable is low self-esteem. I couldn’t see and appreciate the good stuff about myself. Through my daughter’s eyes, I gathered enough courage to embark on a journey of self-discovery and ultimately towards self-love.

Truly, my children are my greatest teachers.

Driving home one late evening with the radio blaring on, I heard American psychologist Dr James Dobson (of Focus On The Family) spoke about building a child’s self image.

He narrated a story of how a nursery teacher had greeted a pair of twin girls with superlative compliments in a packed room of other preschoolers and their parents. He said while it was clear that the compliment had boosted the two girls’ confidence, he couldn’t be as certain about the rest of the children in the class. What he felt certain was the foremost question going through those young minds: “What about me?”

Dr Dobson further said a recent research had concluded that children begun acquiring some form of perceived self-image as young as three years old and therefore parents and teachers ought to be more cautious with their compliments and criticisms to young children.

Dr Dobson’s comment reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend whose daughters were nine and 13 years old. At a recent supermarket trip, Leo and his eldest daughter met some acquaintances. While Leo exchanged pleasantries with the man, he noticed his daughter didn’t have much to talk to her classmate. Apparently the two girls had been very good friends just a few years ago.

When Leo brought it up later, his daughter replied nonchalantly, “Pa, she belongs to the ‘Beautiful Club’ and she has three boyfriends! We don’t have much to talk about anymore.” At that moment, Leo was relieved that his daughter had more important things on her mind than looking beautiful and keeping up with three boyfriends.

He strongly believes that the input we give to our daughters when they are young has a great impact on their adolescence years. “My other daughter is very different. She has always been praised for her beauty from young and I can see how much emphasis she puts on her appearance. Winnie may be nine but she takes a long time to get dressed for a short trip to the shopping mall. If we hurry her or if she is not satisfied with her hairdo or appearance, she would rather stay home. I am bracing myself for some difficult times with her in the coming years,” he said.

From Leo’s sharing, I have learnt that the more important values we want to teach our offspring are kindness, generosity, confidence and love. And to do it best is through our very own actions and speech.

Sometimes it is hard to go against common perceptions. Since the birth of my daughter, I had people saying to me, “Oh, it’s so nice to have a girl because you can doll her up.” And I had comments by relatives about my daughter’s lack of dressing sense – would you believe, at that time my daughter was only five years old? They thought it wasn’t “classy” enough and that her hairstyles were so dull.

I couldn’t stop their comments nor reject their gifts for my daughter. “Wear this dress and tie up your hair this way, you will look very pretty,” they would say to my daughter. Before long, my daughter who had for the initial years preferred cotton tee-shirts and shorts/leggings, took a huge fancy to dresses. She also began to believe that long hair would make her look pretty (also due to peer pressure – most of her classmates had long hair) and wanted the same.

I have always tried to be careful with my choice of words about appearance with her. When I braided her hair once, I merely said, “You look neat!” I would have preferred to say, “You look really cute like a doll!” Whenever she tried to head off to school without brushing her hair, I would say, “Don’t go with your messy hair.”

Despite being mindful of the appropriate words to use with her, my daughter is much influenced by what her friends’ say. She hasn’t had her hair braided again because she didn’t like it when her friends commented that her braids had looked different from theirs. When she told us, we tried to explain to her that her own preferences were more important to herself than what others thought of her.

To be able to stand tall in one’s very own space, the key is self confidence. When I reflected on my own shortcomings, I realized that I hadn’t learnt to love myself as I was growing up. Perhaps this is the first step – to teach my children to love themselves.

As soon as my children are old enough to tell me that they love me, I would ask them, “Do you love yourself? Don’t forget to love yourself!” I hope by saying it often enough, the message will get across.

I always remind them to be kind to themselves; whenever they lose a game or can’t complete a task, it’s better to let “that awful feeling go”. I’ve found this “letting go” is a huge challenge for them – come to think of it, it’s not that easy either for an adult. Whenever the opportunity arises, I would ask, “What would you say to the other players, if you lose a game?” My quick thinking daughter had once replied without hesitation, “Oh, that’s okay. It’s only a game. I still love you.”

Children are essentially kind hearted and loving towards their family and friends; if they are encouraged to be as loving to themselves, they will not fear failure and rejection. Confidence comes to any child who loves herself and believes in herself.