PRP024 What is Attachment?

Show Notes: What is Attachment?

What is attachment? Attachment isn't just about your relationship with your child, though that is important. It can predict how your child will approach future relationships, how close future friendships will be, and whether your child will seek support when under stress. Attachment is dynamic. It can change. So it is not something to stress about, but it is worth learning about. With Associate Professor Cathy McMahon, an expert on attachment theory, we explore what attachment is, and how it might interact with parent-child conflicts, controlled crying, and daycare choices.
Summary
What is attachment?

The way caregivers and infants connect with each other particularly in times of stress.
It predicts how relationships will be used to cope in times of stress.

How does attachment form?

Infants innately have a set of attachment behaviours that help them to achieve closeness e.g. crying, moving toward, clinging.
These behaviours are automatically activated when feeling threatened or distressed.
Signals trigger caregiving responses from the parent.
The pattern of parent's responses to these cues become an expectation.

Good enough parenting - emotionally available most of the time.


Those expectations are taken into future relationships.
Attachment is dynamic. It can change when parents become more or less emotionally available.

Is there something special about the first three years of life?

Yes, the first three years are a period of very rapid brain development.
Experiences in early years are very influential.
There is always potential for change, but it can be harder and more gradual later in life.

Types of Attachment:

Strange situation procedure - The mother takes her child to a room and leaves them there alone or with a stranger. Psychologists observe the child's response to separation and reunion.
3 common patterns:

Secure - distressed by separation, sought parent upon return, were easily calmed by parent, resumed play.
Avoidant - physiologically but not apparently distressed by the parent leaving, didn't react to return - just kept playing.

Parents tended to discourage closeness and redirect to play.
Competent at play but tend not to form close friendships, and more likely to have behaviour issues such as bullying.


Anxious/Ambivalent - very distressed by departure, show anger and upset when the parent returns, but the parent is unable to calm the child.

Can form if the parent is inconsistently available - so the child exaggerates or amplifies pleas for help.
Can also form if the parent is unsure, or unconfident about their ability to settle a child, or doesn't have the capacity to be responsive for long enough. So these parents give a bit of support, but not enough to calm the child.




Attachment doesn't predict everything, only future relationship approaches.
It is about the consistent interaction pattern (we all have bad days).
About 50-60% of mother-infant pairs develop secure attachment.
Insecure attachments are common, normal, and can be quite functional for that parent and child.

Effects of Attachment on later life:

Secure attachments are protective -

New relationships are approached with a positive set of expectations, that tend to be well received and invite closer friendships.
Willing to ask for help and then able to be fairly independent after receiving that help.


Avoidant -

Tend not to ask for support.
Tend not to get as close to people as could be good for th...