🧠There is something we need to talk about.
This experience is lived out a lot in the UK. Parents turning for support, to family members, doctors and educational settings, and having their parenting 'blamed' or told that their child 'simply has attachment issues' 'it's just separation anxiety'.
A child, and the adults in their life, may well have attachment issues...
Do you know what is a perfect ingredient for attachment issues? Yep, UNRECOGNISED and poorly supported neurodivergence; ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, speech apraxia, situational mutism... The list goes on.
Neurological differences can be clear as day, or subtle, on the surface. But, even when they are subtle on the surface, internally the differences are vast and distinct.
When we live a multitude of realities in one space,
and one reality is considered normal, moral, valuable
and others undesirable; a delayed, dysfunctional, disordered version of the predominant one...
then we inescapably create and maintain a wedge that separates us from those differences.
Even if they are part of us.
Or part of our child.
Instead of seeing, respecting, and helping children and individuals explore their differences and hold them as valuable, true and valid.
🧠If you are a parent and a professional tells you your struggling child is struggling simply because of attachment issues, I hope this image might help you in your conversations.
🧠If you are a professional, please listen, carefully. To the children, and to neurodivergent adults. Become one of the more 'attuned' adults that our children and families need in their lives.
Alt text: The picture contains a cartoon figure of a sad mother and sad neurodivergent child. The child and mother have the initials ND on their brains and the child is thinking a cloud of 'ND's. They are separated by a grey area.
Behind the mother stands a grey crowd of stern 'finger wagging' adults with speech bubbles repeatedly containing the letters NT to represent neurotypical opinions.
The ND child is all turquoise in colour, so is the centre of the mother. There is also a turquoise centre in one of the grey adults in the crowd.