The Impact of Trauma on Secure Attachment in Young Children: A case study involving the sudden death by suicide of an alloparent
Submitted for PSY 2105 D Child Development, University of Ottawa, Fall 2024
Parts 1 & 2 : My Topic for the Paper & My Theories of Knowledge
For this assignment, I am choosing to focus on attachment, defined by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings”, between young children and adults (Pagano, 2022, p. 468). Specifically, I am looking at the impact of trauma on a child’s secure attachment, characterized by “emotional closeness and a healthy level of independence and exploration”, with their primary caregivers and alloparents, and how a traumatic incident in a child’s life may create an insecure attachment, whether resistant or avoidant (Altman, 2017, Glossary).
Nativism is defined as the perspective in psychology that certain aspects of knowledge are innate, or pre-programmed at birth. It is reminiscent of philosopher Immanuel Kant’s theory of a priori knowledge that is acquired independently of all experience. Contrary to philosopher and physician John Locke’s assertion that humans are born as blank slates, or tabula rasa, nativists would echo pop singer Lady Gaga in saying that, in some key aspects, we are simply ‘born this way’. With regards to attachment, the evolutionary perspective evoked in nativism notes that mammals other than humans have elements of attachment, such as the young wanting to engage in exploration then returning to their parents as they take steps towards independence, as this is essential to survival (Hammond, 2024).
Constructivism, on the other hand, asserts that the nature-nurture debate is insufficient to explain the complexity of a child’s development. Constructivists insist that a child plays an active role in their own development. Rather than only reacting to their environment, children may invent novel responses to what they witness, as evidenced by psychologist Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment where young participants not only imitated the violence presented on television, but also came up with their own unique acts of aggression. Prior to this psychologist Jean Piaget demonstrated how children advanced their own cognitive and emotional development through accommodation and assimilation; meanwhile, psychologist Lev Vgotsky focused on the role of the mentor working in collaboration with the developing child to realize additional abilities (Hammond, 2024).
Part 3: The Impact of Trauma on Secure Attachment in Young Children
While the evolutionary theory of attachment suggests that children are biologically programmed to form attachments with others, I argue that the nature of those attachments is determined by the active role of the child in their own development. For this assignment, I am taking the opportunity to reflect on my daughter Joy’s secure attachment to me, her sole custody parent, and the ways in which her attachment style shifted to insecure-resistant after the sudden death by suicide of my romantic partner, Rachel, whom Joy considered an ‘alloparent’. “You can grow up with secure attachment and life events might change that” (Hammond, 2024). In this paper, I examine from a constructivist perspective Joy’s reactions to and understanding of Rachel’s death formed by Joy’s own thoughtful perceptions of the world and recognition of our unique and evolving family dynamic. I also explore how it may be possible for a young child to return to a state of being securely attached following a traumatic event.
Joy was born in January 2020 at the Ottawa Hospital on Anishinaabe Algonquin territory. I was in the delivery room with her birth parents, and I was the first person to hold her. Without knowing what ‘kangaroo care’ was at the time, I instinctively placed her 6-ounce body skin-to-skin against my chest and held her close for extended periods of time (Hammond, 2024). As an adoptive parent, I made efforts to be respectful of the role of my daughter’s birth parents – particularly in the first couple of days of Joy’s life as we all remained in hospital together – while yearning to connect with the infant who would be coming home with me.
In the July 2020 Report on the Adjustment of the Child in the Home, Adoption Practitioner Stephanie Parker, approved by the Director of the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, wrote the following regarding the adjustment and bonding between myself and my child:
“Jessica expressed that she felt bonded to Joy right away. She feels fortunate to have been present for Joy’s birth and to have been the birth mother’s support person at the hospital. Jessica feels honoured and fortunate to know Joy from the very beginning. Since this time, their bond has continued to grow as they experience the world together. Jesica feels that she continues to connect more and more with Joy as she gets older. Joy is also quite attached to Jessica. She will always look for her mother when someone else is holding her and Joy was observed to be happy and content in her mother’s [care] during the home visits” (Parker, 2020).
As indicated in this report, it was clear that Joy had developed a secure attachment to me, her primary caregiver. Still, particularly as a solo parent, I understood the importance of having a community around me to help raise my child. From the beginning, I made efforts to surround myself with close friends and family and, during the first two months’ of Joy’s life, she and I spent most days attending events and participating in activities around the city. However, my intentions to provide for Joy a vibrant village of our own making were thwarted when the Covid-19 pandemic necessitated physical distancing starting in March 2020. With limited opportunities to go out and have people over, the presence of our neighbours became paramount in Joy’s development, as she was able to observe children and adults from neighbouring families on our cul-de-sac from a safe distance. Rachel, who bought a home on our street in May 2021, was one of those neighbours.
At first Rachel was our neighbour only, soon shifting into the role of my best friend, then, in the last few months of her life, my romantic partner. Rachel was the only person who regularly cared for Joy aside from myself and my mother. Even though Joy and I never lived with Rachel, Rachel decided that Joy should have her own bedroom at Rachel’s house: in May 2022, Rachel decorated the assigned room in vibrant colours, keen to provide for Joy the loving environment that she – Rachel – did not have as a child. While I still considered myself Joy’s only (adoptive) parent, it was obvious to me that something similar to a parent-child relationship had developed between Rachel and Joy. In fact, as Rachel began spending more quality time with both of us, and sometimes with Joy alone, Joy started to call Rachel ‘Mommy’, while still referring to me as ‘Mama’. Rachel delighted in her maternal moniker, and her delight was perhaps obvious to Joy, which, in turn, likely encouraged Joy to continue using it.
One year after Rachel’s death, I was asked to write a reflective piece for The Catalyst, an online publication managed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. The article, published in November 2023, detailed my grieving journey and acknowledged Joy’s strong connection to Rachel: “When I heard about Rachel’s death, my first thought went to my daughter Joy, who was not quite two and a half years old at the time. Joy had known Rachel for half of her short life, and their beautiful bond included visits to the Canada Agricultural and Food Museum and sitting on her lap to play piano together. As a solo parent raising a young child during a worldwide pandemic, I was grateful to have Rachel as one of the few people I trusted to care for Joy” (Ruano, 2023).
Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson’s 1964 study observed sixty babies at monthly intervals for the first eighteen months of life: “By 18 months, the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments. The results of the study indicated that attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby’s signals, not the person they spent more time with” (Pagano, 2022, p. 470). Like the children from this study, Joy was eighteen months old in July 2021 when she began to form a close bond with Rachel. Even though Rachel had not been present in Joy’s life prior to that year, her focused attention on Joy’s needs and interests – such as farm animals and musical instruments – made it natural for Joy to warm to her, and it became clear that Joy had begun to view Rachel as an auntie or ‘alloparent’.
As noted in The Neurobiological Causes and Effects of Alloparenting, “alloparenting, defined as care provided by individuals other than parents, is a universal behavior among humans that has shaped our evolutionary history and remains important in contemporary society” (Kenkel, 2016, Abstract). In fact, “There’s an allomothers’ day right before Mothers’ Day” Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, who was the first to use ‘allomother’ back in 1975 after her mentor Edward O. Wilson coined the term, told listeners on the On HumansPodcast (Mäkelä, 2024). “Alloparental behavior is similar to parental behavior from the perspective of the recipient of care, and different than parental behavior from the perspective of the caregiver” (Kenkel, 2016, Introduction). So regardless of whether or not I considered Rachel the other mother of Joy, it was Joy’s unique perspective of their bond that determined how she experienced the relationship, as well as the subsequent loss.
In June 2022, Rachel died suddenly by suicide. Joy was two-and-a-half years old. After researching articles online describing how best to share this type of news with a young child, I opted for gentle honesty: “I told Joy as soon as she asked that we wouldn’t be seeing Rachel anymore because she had died, that it was very sad, and that we were going to miss her and it was okay to talk about it” (Ruano, 2023). I understood that it was important not to deny what happened and to make space for Joy to express her feelings openly about it. This was not dissimilar to how I approached my role as an adoptive parent generally: for example, including Joy’s birth parents as an important part of her life story, openly referring to the fact that she has two families that love her, and insisting that any biological family member of hers would be considered part of our family, too. Through the adoption-foster training I had done with the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) prior to Joy’s birth, it had been impressed upon me the crucial nature of maintaining ties with Joy’s culture and origins; I also learned a lot about how to manage traumatic events in a child’s life, which gave me an advantage in dealing with potential effects of Rachel’s suicide on Joy, as much as I was shocked and destabilized by the event itself.
As stated in Infant and Child Development: From Conception Through Late Childhood, “the traumatic situations which lead to the attachment disorder create a persistent state of stress that diminishes their capacity for resilience. Early identification and treatment have been shown to improve outcomes; however, parent education and support are key” (Pagano, 2022, p. 484). I recognized intuitively that Joy’s secure attachment was at risk, and I wanted to do whatever I could to mitigate the potential damage. After all, this wasn’t a normal childhood loss, such as a grandparent dying from old age: this was the sudden departure of a thirty-year-old person in otherwise good health who had adopted the role of an alloparent to Joy and whose daily presence would be sorely missed.
In Speaking Ill of the Dead: Parental Suicide as Child Abuse, Barry Wright and Ian Patridge examine two case studies of parental suicide, likening the effects on the children to other forms of abuse, noting that, in proceeding with the suicide, “the dead person has either chosen to ignore or not considered the powerful effects on the family system. This is profound neglect” (Wright, 1999, p. 230). As part of my training with the CAS, we had discussed how an adoptive or foster parent could support a child who had experienced abuse or neglect, and – once again – openness played a key role in reducing the child’s feelings of shame, discomfort, and confusion about what had occurred. However, in my case, it rarely felt necessary for me to initiate these conversations, as Joy found plenty of opportunities to talk about Rachel and her continued presence – at least in spectral form – in our lives: “Joy frequently brought up Rachel — the places they went together, games they would play, and items in our home — like kitchen utensils or pieces of clothing — that reminded her of Rachel. I always tried to respond positively, even though it sometimes pained me to hear about her. One night, Joy woke up screaming and later expressed between sobs: ‘I’m sad . . . because Rachel went away’” (Ruano, 2023).
Although Joy had demonstrated a secure attachment since infancy, I began to observe signs of insecure-resistant attachment, which is “an attachment style of infants characterized by being clingy” (Altman, 2017, Glossary). As written in my article for The Catalyst, “for many months, [Joy] had been sleeping comfortably in her own bed, but after Rachel’s death, she became increasingly resistant to spending nights apart from me. I questioned her about it, and she eventually explained that she was afraid to let me sleep alone without her — because I might die like Rachel did” (Ruano, 2023). At close to three years old, Joy may have been developing Theory of Mind, “the ability to think about others’ thoughts… that helps humans understand and predict the reactions of others” (Hammond, 2024). Noting that Rachel had died seemingly without cause, Joy had employed her own logic and imagined that the same thing might happen to me, her primary caregiver. Furthermore, she believed that she had the responsibility and even the power to prevent it. When I endeavoured to explain to her that she had nothing to fear, she began asking thoughtful questions to understand better why Rachel had disappeared from our lives in the first place. At this point the following exchange occurred between us: ‘Why did Rachel die?’ She was sick, my love. ‘Was she old?’ No, baby, she was young. Younger than me. ‘I don’t want her to be dead.’ Me neither. ‘I miss her.’ Me too (Ruano, 2023).
In Angels in the nursery: the intergenerational transmission of benevolent parental influences, Alicia F. Lieberman and her colleagues discuss possible approaches to managing trauma and grief in young children: “Maltreated children who are securely attached may be able to register simultaneously the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ parts of their parents, showing a capacity for integration of affective polarities that is one of the building blocks of mental health” (Lieberman, 2005, p. 512). I recognized that it wasn’t in Joy’s best interest for us to pretend to forget Rachel’s significance in our lives, nor to demonize her actions, nor to focus exclusively on the negative aspects of our experience with her in order to minimize the pain of our loss. It was essential, for the benefit of Joy’s healing and my own, to make space for the positive memories, too. “I asked her if she wanted to talk about Rachel and she said yes, so we crawled into her twin bed together, got under the covers, and I listed off all the things they liked to do together: Remember when you played piano together? Remember when you went to the park? Remember [the cats] Timmy and Maple? Remember when you played Nanuk [polar bear in Inuktitut]?” (Ruano, 2022). Referring to these key emotional memories seemed to soothe Joy, and they brought me some comfort in the present moment, as well. While Joy’s shift from a secure attachment to something closer to an insecure-resistant attachment was my immediate concern, I also considered that Rachel’s death and my approach to dealing with it would continue to have an effect on Joy as she got older, potentially impacting many of her future relationships. Lieberman et. al. suggest that openly discussing positive memories of one’s caregivers can allow for psychological healing and growth in children, and serve as a preventative approach for negative behaviours in adulthood (Lieberman, 2005, p. 514). I understood my responsibility to maintain stability in all other aspects of Joy’s life, not only for her wellbeing in the present, but for the years beyond when she would be in my care. As per Lieberman et. al.’s research, there are “two key ingredients in the treatment of trauma: (a) supporting developmental progress and (b) encouraging the (re-)discovery and practice of pleasurable emotional investment in the self, others, and the world through the affective experience of interest, enthusiasm, joy, elation, self confidence, reciprocity, intimacy, and love” (Lieberman, 2005, p. 512). In the months that followed, Joy continued to spend weekdays at her loving childcare centre, while our evenings and weekends consisted of regular visits with friends, events in the community, and lots of quality time and cuddles at home.
The following summer, when Joy was three-and-a-half years old, she and I flew to London, England and travelled together by train to multiple countries across Europe over the course of four weeks. There were many challenges and tantrums and disagreements along the way, but it was a significant bonding experience for the two of us. When we returned home to our familiar surroundings, so too resumed reminders of Rachel and the questions that followed. It was clear to me, as stated in Lieberman et. al.’s research, that “this process of recognition and repair in the development of the self is not restricted to infancy and early childhood but may continue throughout the lifetime” (Lieberman, 2005, p. 510), and there would always be a need to me to be open to difficult conversations about what happened to Rachel: “While I couldn’t bring Rachel back or promise that we wouldn’t lose other people in the future, I did my best to reassure her that ‘Mama and Joy are forever’ in case there was any doubt in her mind. ‘And Ba, too?’ she asked, about her stuffed beluga. And Ba, too” (Ruano, 2023).
Conclusion
This assignment focuses exclusively on one case study that involves myself, my daughter Joy, and my romantic partner, Rachel, who died by suicide in 2022. I recognize that there may be a lack of objectivity in this research, as well as a personal bias that may affect the validity of this work. To better understand the effects of suicide loss on young children with a secure attachment, further research would be required beyond this one example: other case studies would allow for a comparative analysis of children of similar ages – 18 months to 3 years, for example – who have lost a parent or an alloparent to suicide or other sudden death.
Additional research might observe and compare diverse approaches to reparation, as well as the role of early intervention compared with later intervention, or no intervention at all. It would be important to note the long-term impacts through correlational research focused on several families. Researchers could do a longitudinal study looking at the development of these children one year and two years after the traumatic event, and potentially into adulthood. Experimental research would not be recommended for this study, as it would be unethical to suggest parental approaches to dealing with grief and trauma that would not be considered by the researchers to be in the best interests of the children or families. Rather, researchers would have to connect with families at the time of the event, earn their trust, and obtain consent from them to do observational studies over several years’ time.
The key question in this research is whether a child may return to being considered securely attached after a traumatic event, and how and under what conditions this might be achieved. This research could be greatly beneficial for parents, caregivers, and their children who may experience a similar loss in the future, as well as the medical practitioners and support workers who may be involved thereafter.
References
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Lieberman, A. F., Padrón, E., Van Horn, P., & Harris, W. W. (2005). Angels in the nursery: The intergenerational transmission of benevolent parental influences. Infant Mental Health Journal, Vol. 26(6), 504–520 (2005) Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.
Pagano, Dr M. & Parnes, Dr M. (2022). Infant and Child Development: From Conception Through Late Childhood. An Open Educational Resources Publication.
Parker, S. (2020, July 24). Report on the Adjustment of the Child in the Home. Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services.
Ruano, J. (2022, July 29). Journal entry.
Ruano, J. (2023, October). Surviving Suicide Loss: Navigating stigma, grief, and loss and finding healing, hope, and community support after a death by suicide. A personal story. The Catalyst: Conversations on Mental Health. Mental Health Commission of Canada. https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/surviving-suicide-loss/
Wright, B. & Partridge, I. (1999). Speaking Ill of the Dead: Parental Suicide as Child Abuse. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 1999;4(2):225-231. doi:10.1177/1359104599004002008
Jessica Ruano 