INDEX OF QUOTES
 |
Children who feel unloved and unattached are often children of rage and rebellion. They become locked in defiant opposition to adults, who reciprocate with counteraggression. The child becomes “adult-wary”, forever biting the hand that didn’t feed him or her (Brendtro, Van Bockern, & Clementson, 1995). Instead of giving attention to the deviance and pathology of troubled children, adults often find it much more profitable to see even the most difficult behaviours as normal responses of children struggling to cope with abnormal environments and circumstances. It takes empathetic and well-trained professionals to understand that swearing, threats, physical violence, and drug use are the way some children cry out for help. Although defiant youth may seem to relish freedom from adult control, life empty of attachment is actually the opposite of true independence. John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, who have done research on attachment, suggested that secure autonomy or independence is built upon a solid base of ongoing human attachment. Unattached youth may noisily proclaim their pseudo-independence ("Nobody tells me what to do!") but they are only masking what they really feel: "Nobody really cares." |
 |
|
|