[Alison_inPA]

I agree with lippy's advice. I also wouldn't expect family and friends to be as interested in studying the intricacies of attachment as you are. Keep the message about what you expect from them very simple. We have simply told people that, on the advice of experts, the children's contact with others has to be very limited for a while. When pressed to know how long "a while" is, we tell them we'll let them know when they're ready. If you have people who might want to learn more, you can suggest reading for them from some of the articles on the web or some of the attachment books.

We have intercepted gifts and, in the few cases when we couldn't, made it clear to the givers that they are not to give the children things in the future without asking us. We still have a lot of Christmas gifts that the girls don't know about, and I'm not sure when they'll be ready for all of them. In one case we took back a gift that had been given the the girls because we thought it was not appropriate. Yes, this causes hard feelings both from the kids and from the giver, but we have to be clear here about who is in control.

We have also had to put our foot (feet?) down when relatives and friends tested the boundaries to see how much we meant what we said about limited contact. It's funny how many people can hear what you say and agree with you verbally but then somehow think that the full set of rules doesn't apply to them. There's no need to lecture them, though. Just repeat your original message calmly and say you'll let them know when the kids are ready.

Be prepared for people to tell you that you're being too tough or too protective. Thank them for their observations and then ignore them. I actually had a work colleague who is widely considered to be one of the toughest parents around tell me that he thought I should ease up a bit on the kids, that we were being too hard on them. But he doesn't understand the difference between his bio, well-attached kids and mine. So I ignore him.