Key Moments Missed Connection Destiny Poor’S Failure To Bond With Her Infant Son Resulted In A Detached Relationship Between The Two. Her Effort To Establish Their Attachment Was A Two-Year Struggle.

PART II

J’zon Poor was cheered into the world by aunts, uncles and grandparents. They cooed and cuddled him minutes after he had drawn his first breath. Then it was his mother’s turn.

Destiny Poor took one look at J’zon and turned away, shocked. Light hair? Was this a joke? In the back of her mind she’d expected a baby with her own dark locks.

“Where did he come from?” she thought. “Where’s my kid?”

When she looked again, she saw the fair complexion of her son’s father, a man she now detested.

Holding the baby hurt.

So began Destiny’s struggle to form a healthful, loving connection with J’zon - a struggle that would cost her custody of him.

Bonding is a back-and-forth dance between a baby and the main caregiver, usually the mother. It’s the intimate gazes and the glancing away, the coos and the quiet, the cuddling and the letting go. They read each other and react - so fast they don’t always know they’re doing it.

This nursery dance ultimately can set the rhythm children will step to through life. It helps their brains develop and shapes their basic outlook: Life is safe and relationships can be trusted. Or, I’m on my own in a scary world.

These early interactions are children’s first lessons in how to control their emotions.

Poor attachment in the first few years can set the stage for children becoming insecure, manipulative or violent. They may have trouble making friends or forming intimate relationships as adults.

Many people instinctively interact well with their babies, repeating the dance learned from their parents. But researchers believe as many as half of us routinely send signals our children would be better off without.

Destiny grew up angry at her own parents because she didn’t feel connected to them. She spent half her childhood living with relatives and in foster homes. Single and barely 16 when J’zon was born, she had picked up few parenting skills.

J’zon was just 6 months old when social workers decided Destiny wasn’t fit to raise him. She’d been living in a Spokane shelter for street kids and had left him in the care of other teenagers. Social workers placed her in a supervised home for teen mothers, but she left to live with a boyfriend. That’s where she and J’zon were the day he was whisked off to foster care.

Destiny knew she and J’zon had a shaky relationship. But she didn’t realize how bad things were until she visited Kent Hoffman, the Spokane psychotherapist who was to help decide if she should lose custody permanently.

Hoffman asked Destiny to play with her son while being videotaped.

Sounded easy.

“Hey, baby,” she said, holding J’zon in front of her face. He looked away. She moved closer. He swung his head to dodge her gaze.

Hoffman grimaced. Not a good sign. J’zon had learned to protect himself from the hurt he felt each time Destiny left him - physically or emotionally. Getting close was too risky.

When Destiny watched the tape, she sobbed.

Hoffman was not convinced she could summon the desire or the willpower needed to reconnect with this child.

If you want to change a child, start early, say those who study attachment.

That’s because a baby’s brain is a fast-paced construction zone that builds gray matter in response to sight, sound, smell, touch and movement. Genetics sets broad parameters, but brain development depends largely on the environment.

During a child’s first eight months, the number of neural connections more than doubles; then production slows dramatically. That’s why positive interactions from the start can make such a difference, says Robin Karr-Morse, family therapist and author of the book “Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence.”

“Traumatic experience such as child abuse or exposure to domestic violence doesn’t just affect that brain psychologically. They impact it physiologically.”

Brain cells that aren’t activated by pleasure, for instance, begin to die by age 2.

From midpregnancy through a child’s second year, the brain’s right hemisphere - which governs emotions and empathy - has a growth spurt. The baby is particularly sensitive during those years to how his or her caregiver responds emotionally, from engaging expressions to soothing voice.

“She’s influencing the way the right brain is wired up,” said Allan Schore, an attachment expert at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical School. A baby with an undeveloped right brain may become an adult who can’t interpret subtle expressions and thus misjudges other people’s intentions.

The baby is acquiring a nonconscious memory that’s developed through feelings rather than words, Schore says. That memory becomes a sort of lifelong background music that sets the stage for how the child perceives others. For instance, babies who find their closest companion isn’t around to help when they’re hurting may become adults who avoid intimacy for reasons they can’t pinpoint.

When Hoffman watched J’zon and Destiny, he recognized an attachment style known as “avoidant.” It is created when a parent is uneasy with closeness and encourages independence at the cost of physical and emotional contact.

Children sense the hesitancy early on and begin to deny their own need for closeness. Eventually, they create their own distance to avoid the pain of rejection.

Avoidant attachment is common in babies with depressed mothers who don’t want to cuddle, soothe or have much eye contact. As a group, their children end up with less brain activity, lower academic achievement, poorer peer relations and more aggression. They’re also more likely to be anxious and depressed themselves.

Half the low-income moms in a recent University of Washington study were clinically depressed a year after giving birth.

“That’s a large percent of our population that’s being set up for problems down the road,” said Hoffman. “If a child has a depressed or angry parent and they’re learning self-defense in those first months, that’s really a setback.”

Watching Destiny and J’zon, Hoffman also saw another attachment style, known as “disorganized.” Parents with these children often are depressed, neglectful or abusive. They usually have similar unresolved issues with their own parents.

The child learns to fear the parent and may cry, pull back or hide. The parent also may fear the child. In Destiny’s case, it was a little of both.

If the pattern isn’t broken, these children can wind up at risk of all sorts of problems, including violent crime.

Hoffman also sees children who have developed ambivalent attachments. The parent sends mixed signals, so the child doesn’t know what to expect. Parents may demand closeness to the point of intrusion and neglect teaching the child self-sufficiency.

These children ricochet between clinging and resisting closeness. Therapists say they may grow up to fear independence, instead becoming over-involved in other people’s lives.

The good news: Researchers believe from half to 65 percent of children nationwide are securely attached. Their parents are comfortable with both closeness and separation, depending on the children’s needs at the moment. They hug their kids and also give them space. Whether happy or angry, these parents express emotions clearly so their kids need not struggle to interpret them.

Secure children become adults who are generally well-adjusted and believe they deserve to be treated well.

“We learn to think about ourselves by how others see us,” said Jude Cassidy, psychology professor and attachment researcher at the University of Maryland. “If someone treats us as lovable and special, we think other people will treat us that way.”

The expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecy. For instance, studies show students who grew up with secure attachments are less likely to be picked on.

Secure attachments even enhance a person’s ability to deal with everyday stress, Cassidy says. “We all know it’s a whole lot easier to deal with if you know somebody’s going to help you.”

What kind of bond do you have with your child? Chances are good that it mirrors your early relationship with your parents. Eighty percent of us imitate that ingrained style, no matter how positive or negative.

But it is possible for determined people to break the pattern. Research shows that adults who had poor attachments with their parents can - by making deliberate changes - create secure relationships with their children.

Where to start? Remember what you’re really doing is teaching your child to regulate his emotions. Picture it as downloading programs from your brain to your baby’s.

When your baby cries and you soothe him, you’re teaching him to eventually comfort himself. You’re teaching him to escape pain, frustration, anxiety or rage. When you open your face to a child with positive expressions, you actually trigger opiates in his brain.

Strive for what psychologists call “attunement.” That’s when you and your baby are synchronized emotionally - with your child leading the dance. Baby gazes fondly in your eyes; you mirror the expression. He breaks into a grin; so do you. Overwhelmed with excitement, he looks away. You do, too, re-engaging only when the baby’s ready.

With toddlers, attunement can look like this: You cuddle him on your lap; he snuggles in. He wanders away; you let him go. He glances back; you smile. When he leaves his comfort zone, he returns. You welcome him back.

Pay attention to how you handle this mix of closeness and separation, says Spokane family therapist Glen Cooper. Look at it as a circle of security you’re creating for your child — not hovering, but being there when he needs you. When the circle breaks, you repair it.

To discover your probable strengths and weaknesses, Cooper suggests looking at your relationship with your parents. Was closeness or separation hardest for them? It’s usually one or the other; more people have trouble with closeness.

Then ask which is more difficult for you and your child. Your own struggles very well may reflect those of your parents. Determine your weakest area and concentrate on improving it.

When people look in their babies’ eyes, they may see unresolved issues with their own parents. If a woman has lingering anger toward her father, for instance, she may interpret her baby’s cries of distress as anger.

“One test we can kind of run for ourselves is ask: `How do we comfort our child when our child is sad or upset or frightened?’ And if we don’t know the answer to that, then it’s probably not part of our dance,” said Cooper.

Another self-test: Are you responding mostly to your child’s needs or your own? For instance, does your toddler really want to play with a toy while recovering from an upsetting situation? Or are you uneasy with the closeness it takes to soothe him?

“It is hard to change, but it is changeable,” said Cooper. “The biggest tool we have to work with is awareness.”

Hoffman decided to take a chance on Destiny. He knew she was torn between being a teenager and a mom. But he also felt her anguish when J’zon pulled away. With persistence, she might be able to repair the damage.

Destiny also brushed up her parenting skills with help from the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center.

Destiny and Hoffman began meeting routinely, giving her an opportunity many families with bonding problems never get. Even with such help, there’s no guarantee problems will be permanently fixed.

Hoffman helped Destiny learn how the childhood anger with her own parents - even though they’re closer now - affected the way she viewed J’zon.

She tried to cuddle J’zon, determined to outlast his resistance. She coaxed him into eye contact with games such as peekaboo. When he crawled under a table and refused to come out, she waited. And waited.

On especially frustrating days, Hoffman reminded Destiny to be patient and let J’zon lead the dance. He challenged her to be the one who’s bigger, stronger, wiser and kind.

When J’zon edged closer, Destiny said, “See? You do love me.”

Social workers, watching the progress, helped her older sister get temporary custody of J’zon, and he and Destiny began spending more time together.

Two years after that first video session, Hoffman recorded another video that brought tears to Destiny’s eyes.

It was the session that stayed in Hoffman’s mind when he finally recommended J’zon be returned home.

On the tape, Destiny entered a room where J’zon was sitting on the floor, playing with toys. “Hi!” he shouted, spinning around to face her. Her heart leapt as her fair-haired son raced toward her, eager to show off his wooden truck.

“That,” Hoffman said, “is a home run.”

Two sidebars appeared with the story:

1. A guide to bonding

Here’s how to build a secure attachment with your baby:

* The eyes have it: Gaze into your baby’s eyes from the first day of life and watch closely to see when your child wants to look back. At about 6 weeks, your child will focus regularly on your eyes and read what they are “saying.” Lots of pleasurable eye contact will translate into a feeling of reassurance and connection for your baby.

* The name of the game is delight: Babies are “hard-wired” to experience joy with their caregivers in the early months of life. Researchers find that mutual joy is the basis for increased brain growth; dopamine released during phases of pleasure stimulates the creation of neural connections. A baby feels more secure knowing that “life is good because my parent enjoys life with me.”

* Every baby needs a holding environment: Babies soak up love and affection through their skin. Gentle touch shares the tenderness that every infant requires. Playful touch encourages joy. Holding your baby not only provides pleasure and reassurance; it is essential in helping to soothe and organize difficult feelings.

* Whenever possible, follow your child’s lead: Security of attachment requires a caregiver who is sensitive and responsive to the child’s needs. Your willingness to answer subtle requests for attention, comfort, holding, exploration and discovery (with you nearby) will provide an increased sense of security for your child.

* You can’t spoil a baby: It’s not true, as some people say, that you will harm your child if you are “too responsive” to his needs. You can’t spoil a baby in the first 9 to 10 months of life. The most responsive parents actually have children who are less demanding and more self-reliant as they grow older.

* Stay with your child during difficult feelings: Young children often have upset feelings (anger, hurt, sadness, fear) that are too difficult to manage on their own. Stay with them until the feelings have been worked through. Your child will learn basic trust - that someone is there to help when he or she is troubled and that difficult experiences have good outcomes.

* Talk out loud about feelings: From your child’s earliest days, talking about feelings (your child’s and your own) will help your child eventually label feelings and realize that they can be shared. As your child gets older, she or he will realize that intense feelings can be named (mad, sad, glad and afraid) and discussed with someone else, thus ending a need to act them out.

* You need to be only good enough: Perfection is impossible in parenting. In fact, it isn’t even recommended. A child who knows that everyone in the family makes mistakes - and that the errors eventually will be worked out - will feel more secure than a child who thinks everything has to be right the first time.

* Be bigger, stronger, wiser and kind: At the heart of secure attachment is a child’s recognition that she or he has a parent who can be counted on to lovingly provide comfort, guidance and protection during the inevitable difficulties of life. If truth be told, all of us have this need, no matter what our age.

Source: psychotherapist Kent Hoffman at the Marycliff Institute, Spokane

2. Where to turn

Want to know more about attachment and bonding? Look here for help:

* “First Feelings: Milestones in the Emotional Development of Your Baby and Child,” book by Stanley Greenspan and Nancy Thorndike Greenspan.

* “Infants and Mothers: Differences in Development,” book by T. Berry Brazelton.

* Zero to Three, organization dedicated to the development of healthy infants and toddlers: www.zerotothree.org/index.html; (800) 899-4301.

* Attachment Parenting International, organization for families interested in attachment issues: www.attachmentparenting.org.

* FEMALE, international not-for-profit organization supporting women who have altered career paths to care for children at home: www.mothersandmore.org.

* Early Head Start, program in which low-income families with children up to age 3 can apply for free help with child-development issues: In Washington, call (509) 533-8510. In Idaho, call (208) 765-6955.

Public forums

If you want to explore further the issues raised in The Spokesman-Review’s Key Moments project, you are invited to two public forums where audience members will be able to interact with specialists in various child-development fields.

The times and places:

* Thursday, June 29, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Northeast Community Center, 4001 N. Cook, Spokane.

* Tuesday, July 11, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., North Idaho office of The Spokesman-Review, 608 Northwest Blvd., Coeur d’Alene.

The events are free and child care will be provided. Seating is limited so you must register by calling (509) 744-5666 or (800) 789-0029, ext. 5666.