Attachment and Child Development // Wise Short-term Missions
GOOD PRACTICES FOR ATTACHMENT • Nurture healthy attachment by ensuring that parents and long-term caregivers, not trip participants, are meeting children’s primary needs – especially in daily routines and intimate moments. • Encourage children to seek physical and emotional affection from their parents and primary caregivers instead of trip participants, and teach trip participants how to redirect children to their parents and primary caregivers. • Ensure that children are not exposed to trip participants and other strangers. This is because the repeated making and breaking of bonds with successive trip participants can damage attachment. Interaction should not include children under age three, as attachment is most critical and tenuous at this stage. • Before your trip, make sure you understand boundaries for any interaction with children.