Attachment and Child Development

Attachment, a major developmental milestone in the child's life, remains an important issue throughout the lifespan.
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Besides the classic tripartite ABC classifications, Main and Solomon 4 proposed a fourth classification, disorganized attachment D , which is not discussed here. The basic model of explaining differences in attachment relationships assumes that sensitive or insensitive parenting determines infant attachment in- security.

Lack of responsiveness or inconsistent sensitivity has indeed been found to be associated with insecurity in children, and consistent sensitive responsiveness with secure bonds. However, some proponents of the behavioural genetic approach have declared most correlational findings on child development to be seriously flawed because they are based on traditional research designs focusing on between-family comparisons, which confound genetic similarities between parents and children with supposedly shared environmental influences.

Crucial research questions explore the causal role of sensitive parenting in the development of infant attachment security. These questions have been addressed in twin studies comparing attachments of mono- and dizygotic twins within the same family, and in experimental intervention studies designed to enhance parental sensitivity in order to improve the infant attachment relationship. Four twin studies on child-mother attachment security using behavioural genetic modelling have been published to date.


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Three of the four studies document a minor role for genetic influences on differences in attachment security and a rather substantial role for shared environment. Differences in attachment relationships are mainly caused by nurture rather than nature, although the bias to become attached is inborn. Is sensitive parenting the core ingredient of the shared environment?

In general, attachment insecurity appeared more difficult to change than maternal insensitivity. When interventions were more effective in enhancing parental sensitivity, they were also more effective in enhancing attachment security, which experimentally supports the notion of a causal role of sensitivity in shaping attachment. Attachment, the affective bond of infant to parent, plays a pivotal role in the regulation of stress in times of distress, anxiety or illness.


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Human beings are born with the innate bias to become attached to a protective caregiver. But infants develop different kinds of attachment relationships: These individual differences are not genetically determined but are rooted in interactions with the social environment during the first few years of life.

Sensitive or insensitive parenting plays a key role in the emergence of secure or insecure attachments, as has been documented in twin studies and experimental intervention studies. In the case of attachment theory, the nurture assumption 8 is indeed warranted. Numerous findings confirm the core hypothesis that sensitive parenting causes infant attachment security, although other causes should not be ruled out.

Parents are therefore entitled to receive social support from policy-makers and mental-health workers to do the best job they can in raising their vulnerable children. Sensitive parenting is hard work and does not come naturally to many parents, who have to find their way even if they had few positive childhood experiences of their own. It takes a village to raise a child, 14 so parents need to rely on good-quality non-parental care to combine childrearing with other obligations. From our meta-analysis, we concluded that the most effective interventions for enhancing sensitive parenting and infant attachment security used a moderate number of sessions and a clear-cut behavioural focus, starting no sooner than six months after birth.

From an applied attachment perspective, young parents should be given access to preventive support programs that incorporate these evidence-based insights. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Accessed September 18, Without a good initial bond, children are less likely to grow up to become happy, independent and resilient adults. Imagine if the hugs, lullabies and smiles from parents could inoculate babies against heartbreak, adolescent angst and even help them pass their exams decades later. Well, evidence from the new branch of science called epigenetics is reporting that this long-term emotional inoculation might be possible.

The human brain is an amazing organ made up of over billion brain cells that each connect to over other brain cells. The most important stage for brain development is the beginning of life, starting in the womb and then the first year of life. Repeated interactions and communication lead to pathways being laid down that help memories and relationships form and learning and logic to develop. If positive experiences do not happen, the pathways needed for normal human experiences may be lost.

Teicher [ 7 ] has reported the following pathology in children who suffered neglect an extreme form of insecure attachment in their early years. These findings have been backed up by cases of extreme neglect and outcomes of children raised in Romanian orphanages. This highlights the importance of supporting parents and babies in their crucial early years. The new science of epigenetics is discovering more and more how our genes and our brains are affected by the lives we lead.

Attachment: Impact on children's development | Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development

For example, Champagne et al. This effect is so strong that it can even stretch over two generations, with granddaughter mice being better mothers and be able to cope with stress better too, all because their grandmother took good care of their mother. These long-lasting benefits of good parenting in mice are dependent on chemical changes in the DNA of the mice. Studies on the brains of people who committed suicide and were abused as children show the same sorts of chemical patterns as neglected mice.

If depriving infants of a loving family environment causes lasting damage to their emotional well-being, their intelligence and their capacity to develop fully, what are the implications for public health in the 21st century? Expectant parents today have very little practical experience of babies in modern society. For tens of thousands of years, new parents would have spent many years in extended families learning the skills of parenthood by osmosis from their parents, grandparents, aunts, older siblings, cousins as well as having responsibilities for their own younger brothers and sisters.

Attachment: Why is Bonding with Baby Important?

Today, few parents get this opportunity to be immersed in early family life as extended families. Living in close proximity is largely a thing of the past in the UK. A first-time pregnant woman today often only has her pregnancy a mere nine months to prepare for being a parent. They can therefore be hit hard by the shock of being a new parent and feel very unconfident about how to bond and care for their baby. Post-natal mood disorders are common and a potential barrier to bonding and optimal development of newborns.

Breastfeeding is a learned skill and without seeing it happening, lots of new mums really struggle to know what to do, and usually leave hospital before their milk has come in and breastfeeding has been established. The infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present. This supports the evolutionary theory of attachment, in that it is the sensitive response and security of the caregiver that is important as opposed to the provision of food.

The behavioral differences that Harlow observed between the monkeys who had grown up with surrogate mothers and those with normal mothers were;. These behaviors were observed only in the monkeys who were left with the surrogate mothers for more than 90 days. For those left less than 90 days the effects could be reversed if placed in a normal environment where they could form attachments. Clinging is a natural response - in times of stress the monkey runs to the object to which it normally clings as if the clinging decreases the stress.

He also concluded that early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage but that its impact could be reversed in monkeys if an attachment was made before the end of the critical period. However, if maternal deprivation lasted after the end of the critical period, then no amount of exposure to mothers or peers could alter the emotional damage that had already occurred.

Harlow found therefore that it was social deprivation rather than maternal deprivation that the young monkeys were suffering from.

The importance of early bonding on the long-term mental health and resilience of children

When he brought some other infant monkeys up on their own, but with 20 minutes a day in a playroom with three other monkeys, he found they grew up to be quite normal emotionally and socially. His experiments have been seen as unnecessarily cruel unethical and of limited value in attempting to understand the effects of deprivation on human infants. It was clear that the monkeys in this study suffered from emotional harm from being reared in isolation.

This was evident when the monkeys were placed with a normal monkey reared by a mother , they sat huddled in a corner in a state of persistent fear and depression. Also, Harlow created a state of anxiety in female monkeys which had implications once they became parents. Such monkeys became so neurotic that they smashed their infant's face into the floor and rubbed it back and forth. Harlow's experiment is sometimes justified as providing a valuable insight into the development of attachment and social behavior.

At the time of the research, there was a dominant belief that attachment was related to physical i. It could be argued that the benefits of the research outweigh the costs the suffering of the animals. For example, the research influenced the theoretical work of John Bowlby , the most important psychologist in attachment theory. It could also be seen a vital in convincing people about the importance of emotional care in hospitals, children's homes, and day care. Lorenz took a large clutch of goose eggs and kept them until they were about to hatch out.

Half of the eggs were then placed under a goose mother, while Lorenz kept the other half beside himself for several hours. When the geese hatched Lorenz imitated a mother duck's quacking sound, upon which the young birds regarded him as their mother and followed him accordingly. The other group followed the mother goose.

Lorenz found that geese follow the first moving object they see, during a hour critical period after hatching. This process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically. Imprinting has consequences, both for short-term survival, and in the longer term forming internal templates for later relationships. Imprinting occurs without any feeding taking place. To ensure imprinting had occurred Lorenz put all the goslings together under an upturned box and allowed them to mix.

When the box was removed the two groups separated to go to their respective 'mothers' - half to the goose, and half to Lorenz.

Attachment Theory

Imprinting does not appear to be active immediately after hatching, although there seems to be a critical period during which imprinting can occur. Hess showed that although the imprinting process could occur as early as one hour after hatching, the strongest responses occurred between 12 and 17 hours after hatching, and that after 32 hours the response was unlikely to occur at all. Lorenz and Hess believe that once imprinting has occurred, it cannot be reversed, nor can a gosling imprint on anything else.

Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41 , The development of infant-mother attachment. University of Chicago Press.

Stages of Attachment

Attachments and other affectional bonds across the life cycle. The nature of the childs tie to his mother. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39 , A two-year-old goes to hospital. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 46, —