Grief does not spare infants and young children. Attachment disruption through the loss of a primary caregiver is devastating to a young child's foundational experience of safety without the developmental capacity to understand any aspect of their loved one's absence. In this case story, the authors explore the diagnosis of complicated grief in…

"Social withdrawal" refers to the process whereby a child removes him/herself from opportunities for peer interaction. For the last 30 years, social withdrawal research has been predominantly influenced by Asendorpf's (1990) conceptual model characterizing subtypes of social withdrawal based on combinations of social approach and social…

Children develop within the context of caregiver--child relationships, each presenting with their own unique strengths, areas of growth, and compatibility of fit. Instead of the traditional viewpoint that child symptoms are generalizable across contexts and would emerge across relationships, the DC:0--5™: Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health…

The Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, a 45-year study of children born into poverty, offers a number of lessons for practitioners. Among these are the potency of early relationship experiences for predicting developmental outcomes and the fate of early experience following developmental change. This article describes the…

The intensive Circle of Security intervention is an attachment-based program that utilises video feedback to support parents to understand and respond to their children's attachment needs. The original group format was developed into an individual protocol for flexible delivery and broad dissemination. This protocol, described elsewhere, has been…

Many children are underachieving in schools and some are presenting very difficult behaviours that challenge and stress the teacher and affect the measures of school achievement. The purpose of this paper is to summarise the research findings reported in 'Attachment in the Classroom' (Geddes, 2006) with the aim to inform and support teaching…

The aim of this theoretical paper is to think about the emotional link that a mother establishes with her sick and disabled child as a creation of an artwork of care, which involves a process of comprehending and transforming the feelings of guilt, rejection, shame, pain and uncertainty regarding the presence of that child. In addition, the art…

Several concepts exist to explain the human-nature relationship, including nature connection. This paper offers a reconceptualisation of the human-nature bond, based on the infant-parent bond and attachment theory. As such, this paper draws upon research on attachment theory and environmental psychology to draw parallels between the two. Initially…

The importance of parent-child relationships for child developmental outcomes suggests a need to incorporate a relationship focus into early intervention programs for children with developmental delays. Nevertheless, confusion exists about the definition and application of relationship-focussed interventions, and occupational therapists remain…

This article describes the socio-psychological effects of school closure on school-going urban girls in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It illustrates the life of urban students in Bangladesh during the school-closing time and relates it to their previous normal life. It asserts that the strengths of traditional schools have…

Given the legacy of John Bowlby, Attachment theory has often portrayed separation from a caregiver as likely to provoke protest, despair, and ultimately detachment in infants and young children. Indeed, the emotional challenge of separation is built into a key measurement tool of Attachment theory, the Strange Situation. However, James Robertson,…

In this article, we provide definitional clarity for the construct of social withdrawal as it was originally construed, and review the original theoretical and conceptual bases that led to the first research program dedicated to the developmental study of social withdrawal (the Waterloo Longitudinal Project). We also describe correlates (e.g.,…

Students with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) often display significant intrusive behaviors and need specific behavioral, social-emotional, and academic supports. Given the background of trauma consistent with a RAD diagnosis, it is imperative that school personnel understand the social-emotional behavioral supports needed to help children with…

Decades of research and clinical observations have demonstrated the harmful effects of parent-child separation on children's short- and long-term well-being (Society for Research in Child Development, 2018). Young children may be separated from their parents due to a variety of circumstances. This article provides recommendations for the…

The Reflective Interaction Observation Scale (RIOS™) was developed as a research tool to identify the extent to which a supervisory session demonstrates a reflective process grounded in infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) principles and practice. It is aligned with the competencies of the Endorsement for Culturally Sensitive,…