Creating Loving Attachments: Parenting with PACE to Nurture Confidence and Security in the Troubled Child

About the Book

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.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements. Preface. Introduction. 1. Love: The Essential Ingredient. Story: A Mummy Finds Out How to Look After Her Baby. Section 1. Play. 2. The World of Play. 3. Playful Parenting. Story: The Naïve Buccaneer. Section 2. Acceptance. 4. Acceptance of the Inner World of the Other. 5. Parenting with Unconditional Acceptance. Story: Stripes and the Herd of Wild Horses. Section 3. Curiosity. 6. Curiosity: Finding a Different Perspective. 7. Staying Curious Within Parenting. Story: The Boy with All the Knowledge of the World in His Head. Section 4. Empathy. 8. Empathy: Connecting in the Emotional World. 9. Joining your Child with Empathy. Story: The Farmer and the Queen. 10. Brining it all Together and an Additional Ingredient. References. Glossary. Index.

About the Author :

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 CBE, BSc, MSc, D. Clin. Psy. AFBPsS 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.

Review :
The conversational tone between the authors, Kim and Dan, softens the book and makes it very readable... whether you're a parent trying to use this approach, or a therapist looking to increase their clinical skills, reading this book will lead to a better understanding of PACE. Creating Loving Attachments is a great guide for parents struggling to address attachment with their children and for families who may be raising foster or adopted children. Almost like looking in a mirror, readers may be able to find elements in their parenting that are on track and others that might need to be tweaked to encourage healthy attachment. This book may work well for families already in therapy with their children so they can get a great understanding of the relationship and attachment building that needs to take place. Easy-to-read, Creating Loving Attachments is a great book for families looking to enhance relationships with their children. This is a book that permeates with love and compassion for traumatised children. Many Cafcass staff will be familiar with Dan Hughes' work, and Golding has developed this following her experience of his training and integrated it into her own career, which includes developing services for looked after children in Worcestershire. Creative Loving Attachments" is a great guide for parents struggling to address attachment with their children and for families who may be raising foster or adopted children. Almost like looking in a mirror, readers may be able to find elements in their parenting that are on track and others that might need to be tweaked to encourage healthy attachment. This book may work well for families already in therapy with their children so they can get a great understanding of the relationship and attachment building that needs to take place. Easy-to-read, "Creating Loving Attachments" is a great book for families looking to enhance relationships with their children. Written in a deceptively simple and readable way, this book conveys some of the deep truths of close human relationships: above all, the importance of accepting and validating emotions as they are. The examples of parent-child dialogue bring the theory alive and will help many parents to practice parenting in a more effective and mindful way. Kim Golding and Daniel Hughes have written a jewel of a book. One stellar quality of the writing is the way in which the authors give voice to parents throughout, and also highlight the significance not only of conversations but also attitudes, wording and body postures. In doing so, they carefully show progression into more sensitive, attuned parenting. The authors are compassionate as they address parent's shame and their fears for their children, and they build models that help parents and children achieve resonance, hope, and sharing of their inner worlds. The insight gained by parents and professionals will be invaluable as they read the book. I felt a renewal in my own professional and personal life as I read. Thank you, Dr. Golding and Dr. Hughes for this excellent offering.