Creating Loving Attachments

All children need love, but for troubled children, a loving home is not always enough. Children who have experienced trauma need to be parented in a special way that helps them feel safe and secure, builds attachments and allows them to heal.

Playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy (PACE) are four valuable elements of parenting that, combined with love, can help children to feel confident and secure. This book shows why these elements are so important to a child's development, and demonstrates to parents and carers how they can incorporate them into their day-to-day parenting. Real life examples and typical dialogues between parents and children illustrate how this can be done in everyday life, and simple stories highlight the ideas behind each element of PACE.

This positive book will help parents and carers understand how parenting with love and PACE is invaluable to a child's development, and will guide them through using this parenting attitude to help their child feel happy, confident and secure.

Daniel A. Hughes is a psychologist who specializes in working with children and young people with trauma/attachment problems and their families. He developed Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, a key feature of which is the parenting attitude of PACE, and Attachment Focused Family Therapy. He is the President of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Institute, Pennsylvania, USA. He is author of several books including Building the Bonds of Attachment, 2nd edition, and Attachment Focused Family Therapy Workbook.

Kim S. Golding is a clinical psychologist who works in Worcestershire, England where she was influential in the founding of the Integrated Service for Looked After Children - a multi-agency, holistic service providing support for foster, adoptive and residential parents, schools and the range of professionals supporting children growing up in care or in adoptive families. Kim was trained and mentored by Dan Hughes in the use of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). She is on the board of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Institute supporting the use of DDP in Europe, USA and Canada. She accredits and trains professionals in the approach in the UK and has been invited to speak about this work internationally.