“What drives the science of attachment is the fact that through our first attachments, for better or for worse, we learn about the world. What makes the science personally compelling is that it is a love story. It is not just any love story; rather, it is the story of the hope, fulfillment, and heartbreak of our first love.”

The Circle of Security Intervention: Enhancing Attachment in Early Parent-Child Relationships by Powell, Cooper, Hoffman and Marvin

According to psychiatrist John Bowlby (1907-1990), who pioneered the study of attachment theory, “Infants need to form a close relationship with at least one primary caregiver to ensure their survival, and to develop healthy social and emotional functioning.” Infants and children who do not form close, secure relationships with a primary caregiver during early childhood develop insecure or disorganized attachment styles that hinder their capacity to make and maintain healthy, meaningful relationships as adults.

So how does this understanding of the human need for secure attachments relate to our church planting work in northeast Thailand?

According to the most recent statistics from UNICEF, more than 40 percent of all children aged 0-17 in northeast Thailand do not live with either biological parent. A large percentage of the population in northeast Thailand is growing up, or has grown up, with compromised or insecure relational attachments to their primary caregivers. Additionally, at least 55 percent of all children in northeast Thailand aged 0-14 (62 percent in poorer communities) regularly experience some form of violent psychological or physical punishment from either a parent or other caregiver. A majority of all children aged 0-14 in northeast Thailand are subjected to fear-based discipline by their primary caregivers, which can lead to highly insecure and disorganized relational attachments that hinder healthy emotional development.

So what can we do about this?

Currently, our AFM Isan Thai Project team is working to increase our knowledge base about attachment theory and how to integrate that knowledge with our church planting and leadership development initiatives. One primary way we are increasing our knowledge base is by becoming certified facilitators of a program called Circle of Security Parenting.1 Within this program, we learn how to model and coach attuned parenting in a way that supports children’s developmental need to explore their world from a secure base of support that they can return to when they need protection, comfort and a safe environment to organize their feelings.

We hope to develop local leaders who will be supported in growing their emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills necessary to form secure relational attachments, both in their biological and church family groups. We desire that every church that is planted in northeast Thailand would be a healing community that would provide two foundational spaces: launching pads from which to go out and safe harbors in which to return. We want to help these faith communities be supportive places where people, both children and adults, feel nurtured, watched over and encouraged to ask for help; places where people feel that fellow disciples delight in them and enjoy their company; places where people can reconcile their faith in Jesus and the biblical-concept of a loving God with the stark realities of early childhood trauma and lack of bonding with a primary caregiver.

As that old hymn reminds us, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me . . . Come home! Come home!”

The reality that we must honestly face is that for many children and adults here in northeast Thailand, home doesn’t feel like a place of safety or security that one would want to come back to.

Please continue to pray for our team as we are working to partner with local leaders to help the Isan Thai people reimagine home and family spaces as grounding places where they can find shelter from the storms of life and a secure base from which to interact with their wider communities.

1 To learn more about Circle of Security Parenting, please visit the website at: www.circleofsecurityinternational.com

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