Teenagers and Attachment: Helping Adolescents Engage with Life and Learning

Adults working with or caring for teenagers at school and in the community have one outcome in mind: to engage them in the richest depths of experience life can offer - rewarding relationships and satisfying learning experiences - so that teenagers can develop a confident and generous view of themselves, other people and the future. But if teenagers find it difficult or impossible to trust that adults genuinely have their interests at heart, the outcome can be chaos, conflict, misunderstanding and despair on both sides. When children from insecure backgrounds become adolescents, the challenges they experience themselves and present for those around them can get a lot harder to sort out, before the teenager can fully integrate into society. These adolescents can quickly acquire 'bad kid' or 'anti-social' labels. They may form attachments by joining gangs, but in doing so, further alienate themselves from other more constructive options on offer. The contributors to this much needed book have worked successfully on the front line with teenagers whose ability to make healthy relationships, or to find learning exciting or even possible, has been severely compromised by their past experiences of trauma, neglect and abuse. Each expert practitioner offers practical strategies, underpinned by attachment theory and their own extensive experience, to enable teachers, psychologists, therapists and social workers to reach out to young people in new ways, establishing genuine connection, real possibilities for learning, and hope.