I trust that everyone had a great Thanksgiving break. Over my break, I ran across a web site that caught my attention. It was the web site for the American Camp Association. Here’s a blurb from the “About” page over at the ACA web site:
The American Camp Association (formerly known as the American Camping Association) is a community of camp professionals who, for 100 years, have joined together to share our knowledge and experience and to ensure the quality of camp programs. Because of our diverse 7,000 plus membership and our exceptional programs, children and adults have the opportunity to learn powerful lessons in community, character-building, skill development, and healthy living — lessons that can be learned nowhere else.
I was drawn to the ACA web site because their web materials mention resources, issues, and concerns that are of interest to our Foundation. As an example, the ACA web site mentions the work of Richard Louv and his book Last Child in the Woods—Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. I have had the pleasures of hearing Louv speak in Santa Fe and exchanging emails with him. In essence, Louv suggests that if kids do not form secure attachments to caregivers early in life, their ability to attach to nature later in life will be potentially compromised. Louv worries that if a whole generation of kids does not attach to nature, that will be a whole generation from which very few conservationists will spring. A dwindling pool of conservationists portends a dwindling focus on conservation issues and efforts, so argues Louv. On a web page entitled Pillars of Hope, the ACA web site states: “The camp experience is the best way to address nature deficit disorder.” Lets look at another example of where the interests and efforts of the ACA dovetail with those of our Foundation.
On the Pillars of Hope web page, the ACA web site states: “The Search Institute tells us that 48 percent of younger children don’t have a caring adult in their home or in school.” Again, I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Peter Benson—President and CEO of The Search Institute—speak up in Santa Fe on the topic of Raising Thriving Youth back in May of 2009. Dr. Benson also told us that almost half of all young children in the U.S., in essence, do not have a safe and secure primary attachment figure. Personally, I find this to be a staggering statistic. This agrees with information that I have gleaned from national attachment conferences over the years (starting back in 2003) that suggests that worldwide secure attachment levels have continued to drop since such levels were first recorded in the early 1980s. In an effort to combat this trend, the ACA web site states (again, from the Pillars of Hope web page): “ACA research demonstrates that youth, staff, and parents believe the camp experience contributes to positive growth in relationship-oriented [that is to say, attachment-oriented] outcomes such as friendship skills, peer relationships, social comfort, leadership, values, and decision-making.” OK, one more example.
In an ACA web page entitled Field Guide to Preserving Childhood—Peg Smith’s Keynote Address at the International Camping Congress in Quebec, October 2008, Peg Smith—Chief Executive Officer of the American Camp Association—references work by L.A. Times writer Rosa Brooks. I should mention that Rosa Brooks is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Here’s the quote by Brooks that Smith points to in her keynote:
American children are in a lose-lose situation. They’re forced prematurely to do all the unfun kinds of things adults do, but they don’t get any of the privileges of adult life: autonomy, the ability to make their own choices, use their own judgment . . . . Somehow, we’ve managed to turn childhood into a long, hard slog. Is it any wonder our kids take their pleasures where they can find them.
What Brooks is writing about (and Smith points to) is what John Bowlby—arguably the father of attachment theory—called role-reversal or parentification: switching the roles of parent and child and, as a result, prematurely turning the child into an adult with parent-like responsibilities. A child who has been parentified is often (unconsciously) asked to “parent the parent” so-to-speak. Bowlby argued that there is a close association between insecure attachment patterns and role-reversal or parentification patterns. Simply, if the child is charged with knowing the mind of the parent, the child will have a tough time knowing his or her own mind. Like Bowlby, Smith, Brooks, and many others, our Foundation is very troubled by these role-reversal or parentification patterns. As a matter of fact, Kay Hymowitz, back in 1999, wrote an entire book on the subject: Ready or Not: Why Treating Children as Small Adults Endangers Their Future—And Ours. I wrote a summary of Hymowitz’s book as a way of drawing attention to the connection between role-reversal or parentification patterns and insecure attachment. (Use the CONTACT US button above to request a copy of this summary.)
Hopefully the above examples have convinced you that the interests of the ACA dovetail with the interests of our Foundation. As a matter of fact, as I read through the materials at the ACA web site I found myself simply substituting the word “camp” for the word “attachment.” This wordplay became rather revealing and profound when I used it to read a web page entitled Brutal Truths (which was also a part of Smith’s keynote). Allow me to present a few of these brutal truths about the camp experience that Smith talks about because, in my opinion, they also speak volumes about what is happening (or not happening) in the area of Bowlby’s attachment theory (my additions are in brackets):
- Brutal truth—Many parents do not embrace camp [attachment]
Here’s how Smith describes this brutal truth:
They [parents] suffer a lack of understanding or worse yet—fear [about both camp and attachment]. Far more parents today have not gone to camp—they are not inspired to “pass along a memory” [e.g., Bowlby’s idea that secure attachment is passed along transgenerationally]. Far more parents define camp [attachment] differently than those of us sitting in this room. Maybe that is part of the problem—we do not look like the parent of today or tomorrow. It appears we are serving an evaporating demographic, a shrinking minority of people. It begs the question, how do we need to change in order to change the thinking of others?
I agree with Smith. I think today’s parents look at attachment differently than, say, parents just 30 years ago. As an example, during the post mortem discussion that took place at the end of the U.S. version of the TV program Baby Borrowers (which aired in the U.S. in the summer of 2008 on NBC), across the board the parents said the same thing (and I paraphrase): “A focus on attachment holds little value for us because the realities of modern day work life force us to dump our kids whenever, wherever, and with whomever.” NBC’s medical expert, Dr. Pinsky, agreed with the parents by saying essentially, “Don’t worry … kids are resilient.” To their credit, NBC did invite an attachment expert to be a part of the discussion—Dr. Kyle Pruett, M.D. Dr. Pruett suggested that insecure attachment can often present as resiliency. I emailed Dr. Pruett following the show. Here’s what I had to say:
I too disagree with Dr. Pinsky’s comment that kids are resilient. Well, yes and no. Bowlby’s attachment theory holds that through repeated early separations of a potentially traumatic nature, kids can appear to gain resiliency by becoming inappropriately distanced (e.g., forming a distanced attachment pattern of behavior) from a need for human connection. Or they may become inappropriate caregivers (e.g., forming enmeshed attachment behavior). Both are adaptive patterns that facilitate survival in an otherwise hostile early relational environment, but this apparent resiliency will play havoc with a person’s ability to form stable, appropriate human connections later as an adult.
Dr. Pruett was kind enough to email back and say …
Rick—Thanks for taking the time to let us know you are out there, and I so appreciate your support as you clearly got the point. We also appreciated the invitation by NBC to join the discussion.
All this to say that, today, a growing number of medical experts are reframing insecure attachment as “resilience,“ which makes parents feel better about their need to dump their kids but also serves to create fear and misunderstanding around secure forms of attachment.
- Brutal truth—Our profile [e.g., the mission of the Foundation] doesn’t reflect the community at large, or in fact, the larger camp [mental health] industry.
Here’s how Smith describes this brutal truth:
We [the camp industry or our Foundation] don’t look like the world around us—the world we want to influence. We, in fact, look less and less like the world in which we live. To cling to a shrinking minority marketplace is done at the detriment of millions of kids who deserve a camp [e.g., secure attachment] experience.
Again, I agree with Smith that institutions that have a focus on experiences that encourage secure attachment increasingly do not reflect the world at large. The world at large would rather reframe insecure attachment as resilience so that parents can dump kids at daycare centers and employ parent substitutes (such as behavioral drugs) without feeling a twinge of guilt or remorse. For more on this theme, see Mary Eberstsadt’s 2004 book Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes. Even Bowlby took a dim view of the self-esteem movement that surrounded him in the 1970s because he viewed it as a reframe of insecure attachment at the level of society (see my October 29th, 2010 post for more on this theme). This brings us to the last brutal truth:
- Brutal truth—Our brand, camp [attachment], is losing relevance.
Here’s how Smith describes this brutal truth:
If we don’t face the [above] truths we risk losing all relevance. We can’t look like we did 100 years ago [50 years ago for attachment]. Camp [attachment] is a noun we no longer own, we don’t control the definition—people don’t know/understand the promise of camp [secure attachment]. Saying “camp [secure attachment] gives kids a world of good” louder, adds no additional meaning.
Once again, I agree with Smith here. Bowlbian attachment types, too, no longer own or control the definition of secure attachment. People don’t know about or understand the promise of secure attachment. As a matter of fact, insecure attachment continues to be reframed as “good” (via such propaganda spins as resilience and self-esteem) while secure attachment is reframed as “bad” because it ties parents down and makes them “contingent” (e.g., a child’s physical and mental well-being is contingent on parental involvement and attunement). For more on this theme, see Daphne de Marneffe’s 2004 book Maternal Desire—On Children, Love, and the Inner Life (summary available).
So, by way of summing up, here are a few brutal truths (paraphrasing the ACA materials) that Bowlbian attachment types may wish to take notice of:
- Many parents do not embrace secure attachment because to do so would make them contingent, a contingency that in all likelihood would make them feel guilt and remorse over such things as “kid dumping” and “parent substitute use.”
- Institutions (such as our Foundation) that have a focus on developing and encouraging experiences that have the potential to lead to secure attachment, no longer reflect the community at large, such as the mental health and social service communities.
- Our theory—attachment—is losing relevance.
How can Bowlbian attachment types begin to deal with these above truths? That’s a topic I’ll take up at a later date. As always, we welcome your suggestions. Please feel free to leave a comment (registration required). How are you (or your organization) dealing with the above brutal truths? Are you even aware that these brutal truths exist? Should Bowlbian attachment types continue to “cling to a shrinking minority marketplace” (quoting Smith from above) or is it time to throw in the towel and admit that the anti-secure attachment message conveyed by such social phenomena as “kid dumping,” “widespread use of behavioral drugs as parent substitutes,” “resiliency and self-esteem frames,” “role-reversal,” etc., have won the day. Will Bowlbian attachment types know when they are no longer relevant and it’s time to turn out the lights?
Postscript—I was fortunate enough to attend sleep away camp for six summers starting at the age of eight. I’m convinced that this early camp experience played a large role in my adult decision to become a geologist back in the 1980s. Sadly, geology departments around the U.S. are closing their doors, which begs the question, “Is geology relevant anymore?” Four years ago, the University of Connecticut—my alma mater—closed the doors to its geology department. Here’s a clear example of an institution that fosters a secure attachment to nature literally closing its doors and turning off the lights. On a bright note, my old camp—Camp Half Moon—is alive and kicking and celebrating its upcoming 89th camp season.
