According to the research, attachment is a survival instinct embedded in our genes. Secure attachments are now widely understood to be necessary for a child to develop successfully.
Jake Spencer, clinical director of Oxford Parent Infant Project, says attachment is a 'biological bond between an infant and a caregiver, running across all species.' She adds, 'Crying is designed to show the baby is in distress; it is a way of keeping safe and not being left behind. If the baby has continual experience of having parent who comes (when they cry), this helps them learn to regulate their own emotions.'
While attachment is the meat and drink of an early years day job, some practitioners have realised the potential benefits of teaching parents the basic principles as well.
At Little Barn Owls, in Horsham, Sussex, mums are given an eight-week course in 'baby enrichment' - covering attachment, development and emotional support - for free. Founder Hayley Peacock says it is principally designed to 'equip mums with the tools to enable emotional security in their children. It's about enabling children to have the confidence to go off and learn, but also have a safe person to come back to.'
Mums can 'spend uninterrupted, quality time with their baby, playing with and observing him/her while learning more about natural baby development from our expert development consultant'. The expert is psychologist Una Archer, who provides the core teaching on attachment using the Circle of Security programme, a therapeutic approach for parents from the US, designed to shift problematic patterns of attachment. According to Ms Archer, a key focus of the course was parents dropping children off. 'We spoke about how to help babies feel secure. We had some wonderful feedback - one mum said she learned to marvel at her baby.'
Little Barn Owls parent Janine Hinchey, whose daughter Holly is now 14 months old, said she had never heard of attachment before going on the course and was attracted by the social aspect of the course (the idea of meeting other mums). 'No transition to nursery will be painless, but the classes cemented the idea that you can do things to make it easier,' she said. 'I was also expecting nursery drop off to be a bit less dramatic for my second child than my first, but it was worse, which was a bit of a shock. We learned that until she is properly settled she will cry and that is OK. That is just her showing her emotions.'
Another nursery to use the Circle of Security is Sapphires Nursery School, Surrey, which opened last month. The approach is part of the 'fabric' of the school, and while the three core staff are trained in the area, further work with a Circle of Security 'facilitator' is ongoing, says Emma Watson, director. Parents will be given the opportunity to take the course, and are invited to a briefing session before their children start, which explains how the nursery manages settling in and transitions based on the programme and staff knowledge of attachment.
The expert input comes in the form of Robyn Dolby, an Australia-based psychologist who has already adapted the Circle of Security to provide a model for use in early years settings. She has helped formulate the Sapphires programme, says Ms Watson, which has a specific focus on play spaces and transitions, and continues to have input in staff training.
'Secure children exhibit increased empathy, greater self-esteem, better relationships with parents and peers, enhanced school readiness, and an increased capacity to handle emotions more effectively when compared with children who are not secure. We believe that if our staff and parents are trained in Circle of Security, the children will benefit in these ways,' says Ms Watson.
'Reflective practice and understanding their own attachment history will be part of the ongoing training and learning for staff,' she adds.
For Ms Spencer, when it comes to attachment classes, nursery workers have a 'lot to offer'. 'Nursery workers will have a lot of experience of playing with children. We want children to explore and be curious about the world: they can certai- nly tell the parents how to do that and model it.' But, she says, 'Their experience of working with parents and babies together is more restricted. Nursery workers who haven't had support might not be aware of what they are bringing in to the equation. They might well believe, because their own emotions say it, that you shouldn't respond to a baby crying. A lot of care is needed with how aware you are of your own attachment styles. I would want them to have a space to be able to reflect on that.'
At Little Barn Owls, which won Nursery World's Nursery of the Year last month, practitioners' own attachment experien- ces were built into the process, with simultaneous sessions to train staff using more in-depth course material. Ms Peacock says, 'We had instances when staff would come out being very reflective and sometimes quite emotional about their own childhood experiences.' Ms Archer adds, 'I would say "How would you feel if you were in that situation? Do you remember being comforted? Or what would your parents do if you did something they didn't want?" The biggest piece of work was practitioners understanding what the children need now, and if they can provide that or not.'
For Ms Peacock, it is also about challenging out-of-date parenting methods. 'There is such conditioning about how to parent and still this idea that children are told what to do by their parents and they damn well do it; that we must control our children. It leads to behaviour ... that doesn't lead to a good self-image.
'If you establish a meaningful relationship at the beginning it will allow your child to build up a positive self-image. This can be improved by better and more modern parenting techniques.'
She adds that the course was also designed to prepare parents for a stress-free way to introduce parents to nursery along with other 'enrichment'-related ideas about sensorial, natural and heuristic materials.
For Ms Hinchley, a key benefit was quality time with her child away from the business of normal life. 'You are around other people all the time. In every class, we spent a few minutes of quiet time just looking at our children and seeing what they wanted to do. I've not really done that before and it felt a bit weird, but by the end of the course they were grabbing toys and trying to give them to you - things they hadn't been able to do at the start. And I learned more about how to make my baby laugh. We would have these lovely moments,' she says.
