Quotes and Stories about COS

"I've been to so many parenting classes and nobody ever talked about this.  It is exactly what I need."

"You aren't fixing our kids, you're fixing us!" 

Quotes are from parents; hared by Cindy Roberts, Eugene, OR (1/26/10 email)

"He is just doing that to get back at me." (Mother of 18 month old)

"I never knew he was communicating his needs to me." Same mother after completing

           20-week COS group

Shared by Anne Stone, Portland, OR, Northwest Early Childhood Institute, phone call , 9/29/08

"I thought she was always looking for attention. But, it wasn't attention. She was looking for connection." Quote is from a mother in the Circle of Security Parenting DVD, 2010

#1:  Husband and wife attended two different groups; before group the parents tended to have a "good cop, bad cop" mentality toward parenting. After group the "good cop" parent learned she could take charge with her daughter without her daughter rejecting her.  And the "bad cop" parent learned he had the ability to see his daughter's behavior has a need to be met, rather than a behavior to be punished or avoided, and was able to be with his daughter through the difficult times without loosing his patience.  He also learned that what he at first thought was his daughter rejecting him, was really a reaction to his not being willing to be there for her.  When he stayed with it, she became more accepting of his parenting, rather than demanding mom be resent. He also reported all other relationships (wife, friends, and co-workers) had improved
after he learned about himself within relationships.

#2:  Mom hesitant to bond with child that was "different" from her. Only slightly able to make changes in being there for her son around the circle.  However, mom had another baby and is practicing attachment parenting as learned in Circle of Security and is doing all the things she was not able to do with first child during infancy, and is developing a secure attachment with 2nd baby.

#3:  Grandma learned she was raising grandchild to be independent too early, letting him fend for himself before he was ready, and was willing to change cultural/generational beliefs about how to help child in bottom half needs.  Similarly, another mom in that group learned how she was not comfortable in meeting her child's bottom half needs, so was distracting child from those needs, or at best minimally meeting them. She learned to over-ride her discomfort during bottom half moments and more fully meet those bottom half needs.

Shared by Cindy Roberts; from Kevin, one of their COS Certified Therapists, in Eugene, OR (1/26/10 email)

"The Circle of Security may just hold the key to providing answers to the attachment problems that face some of society's most vulnerable families. I believe that John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, my mentors and the originators of Attachment Theory, would be most impressed."

                Jude Cassidy, PhD., Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland,   Co-Editor, Handbook of Attachment

                accessed 2/27/09 at www.outsetimh.com/register.pdf

The COS-Parenting DVD is solidly based on attachment theory and research. In a simple, user-friendly way, COS-P effectively (a) teaches parents what children need for secure attachment, and (b) helps parents understand what might stand in the way of their being able to respond to these needs. This approach differs from programs that focus on changing the child's behavior. COS-P helps parents build supportive and effective relationships with their children that can serve as the basis for lasting and pervasive change.  This creative work is widely viewed, both nationally and internationally, as being on the cutting edge of early parent-child intervention programs. I have seen first-hand how effective this approach can be.

                Jude Cassidy, PhD., Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland,   Co-Editor, Handbook of Attachment

Accessed from 3/25/10 email from Kent Hoffman

"Whenever I see a teacher who looks as if she wants to pick a kid up by the shoulders and stuff him in the trash, I know that kid had an avoidant attachment history." Alan Sroufe, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Institute of Child Development

                                                                                Quote is from Becoming Attached, Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1990, p.50

"The Circle of Security breaks the action-reaction cycle."

                                Joanne Brown, Attachment Network of Manitoba, call on 6/11/09

"Secure attachment is a basic need."

                                11/4/09, Diane Heintz, Executive Director, Clatsop CASA Program, Inc.., Astoria, OR 

“We need a conspiracy of adults gathered together on behalf of insuring the well-being and success of our children.”

                                                Dr. James Comer,

accessed 1/28/10 at http://www.first5kids.org/files/FIRST%205%20SCC%20Strategic%20Plan%200809.pdf

"The Circle of Security Parenting® DVD is an outstanding contribution and a “must see” for parents of young children. Focusing on how parent/child relationships can be strengthened, this unique approach teaches parents and those helping them new ways to understand children’s needs and behavior. It also offers effective ways to respond to these needs and behaviors. I have found it invaluable in my own work with parents of young children."

                Charles H. Zeanah, M.D. Tulane University School of Medicine, Editor of Handbook of Infant Mental Health

"If you start looking at how human beings develop and diverge and you start realizing how poverty really gets created and you start tracing the origins of poverty back, it's hard not to go back, back, back to the earliest years in the lives of people. And as a result of a series of studies over my whole lifetime, actually, I found that the effectiveness of early intervention is much, much higher than many of the interventions that American society has traditionally adopted to try to remediate, to patch up, to fix the problems that arise from disadvantaged environments.

… Having said that though, what we can learn from the African-American family is also very interesting. Because even in the face of severe disadvantage, what we can find is many success stories. And the success stories tell you something about human development, which we typically ignore in public policy. That it isn't just a matter of income and it isn't just a matter of the education of the mother. But it's a matter of parenting and motivating the child."

James Heckman, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago, 2000 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences winner

Accessed 1/29/10 at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111572288

There are two components of the current framework for thinking about child behavior problems that pervade our culture. The Bowlby-Ainsworth theory of attachment and the Circle of Security Intervention are parts of a shift in the field of early parent-child relationship development suggesting that these two components of our current framework are mistaken and require that as professions and as a society we need to re-examine our view of child behavior problems. 

Current framework views child behavior problems as:	vs.	Theory of Attachment and Circle of Security framework views child behavior problems as:
1. Residing “in the child.”	vs.	1. Existing within relationships     rather than within the child.
2. Reflecting some sort of negative intent on the part of the child	vs.	2. Reflecting valid relationship      needs on the part of the child      rather than negative intent.

Robert Marvin; accessed 10/15/09 at http://csc.psych.psu.edu/speaker/speakers/Marvinabstract.shtml

"Ainsworth found no simple correlation between the length of time a mother spent attending to her child and his ultimate emotional health. The securely attached children were not necessarily the infants who were taken up into their mothers' arms most frequently or held the longest. Ainsworth observed instead that secure attachment resulted when a child was hugged when he wanted to be hugged and put down when he wanted to be put down. When he was hungry, his mother knew it and fed him; when he began to tire, his mother felt it and eased his transition into sleep by tucking him into his bassinet. Whenever a mother sensed her baby's inarticulate desires and acted on them, not only was their mutual enjoyment greatest, but the outcome was, years later, a secure child."

Thomas Lewis et al, A General Theory of Love, 2000, p. 75

In the popular press and in many programs, “resilience” is frequently used as if it were a character trait, as in “John is very resilient.” However, using the term this way has had an untended but serious negative consequence in that it has paved the way for perceptions that some individuals will “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” no matter what their circumstances, while others simply do not "have what it takes" to overcome adversity. Such perceptions let policy makers off the hook by allowing them to believe that their actions do not matter when it comes to programs and policies that support healthy human development. In the words of noted resilience researcher, Dr. Ann Masten:

The great danger I see in the idea of resilience is in expecting children to overcome deprivation and danger on their own....There is no magic here; resilient children have been protected by the actions of adults, by good nurturing, by their assets, and by opportunities to succeed. We cannot stand by as the infrastructure for child development collapses in this nation, expecting miracles. (Masten, 1998).

Quote is from "The Promotion of Mental Health and the Prevention of Mental and Behavioral Disorders: Surely the Time Is Right" by Nancy J. Davis, Ed.D.; Accessed 1/5/10 at www.samhsa.gov/Matrix/timeisright.pdf