HDFS 2950 Attachment Style Paper
- 1. Running head: HDFS 2950 FINAL PAPER 1 HDFS 2950 Final Paper Caitlyn Wilson University of Georgia
- 2. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 2 Attachment and Parenting Introduction As humans we are always making new relationships and new connections with people throughout our lives. How we attach and respond to these relationships often corresponds to how we attached to our parents and other young relationships as a child. These attachments are often how we react to our needs and how we go about getting those needs met. Each attachment style is based on three dimensions. Closeness, which is how comfortable we are with getting emotionally close or intimate in relationships. Anxiety, which often comes in the form of trust issues, or how afraid a person is of their partner abandoning them. Then finally, dependence/avoidance, which is the level of comfortability of depending on your significant other or how comfortable you are with them depending on you. These dimensions help categorize four different types of attachment styles: secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized. Secure is the attachment style that leads to adults being most satisfied in their relationship. As children, parents become the child’s safe base so they can go and explore their environment while having the parent to return to. When the child is distressed, the parent comforts them and the child feels connected to their parent. Avoidant attachment style comes from parents that tend to be emotionally unavailable for long periods of time. They don’t care much when the child is sick or hurt, they discourage crying, and often force premature independence on their child. Therefore, this teaches the child to disregard the natural urge to reach for their parent when afraid, sick, or in distress. Adults with avoidant attachment style tend to steer away of the emotional closeness aspect in romantic relationships to avoid getting too close to their partner. Anxious is the style of attachment that leads to the type of relationships in adulthood that
- 3. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 3 lacks trust and fears abandonment. This attachment style stems from having a parent that is sometimes there for the child and sometimes is not. The parent may be attentive and loving some days yet cold the next. This can cause a child to seem clingy to the inconsistent parent to attempt to get their needs noticed and met. A sign of this attachment style in childhood is the child may feel anxious when the parent leaves but isn’t consolable when the parent returns. Disorganized attachment style stems from parenting tactics that leave the child feeling like they do not have a secure and safe base for the child to return to. The child may love the parent but also be afraid of the parent. The causation of this is from when the parent is inconsistent with how they respond to the child when in distress. Because of the inconsistency, the child does not know of an organized strategy that allows their needs to be met without the possibility of being yelled at or hurt. In adulthood, this attachment style can lead a person to have trouble opening up to people or asking for help and tend to have issues with trust. These attachment styles and the type of parenting that causes them are very important in childhood development because this lays the base of a child’s future relationships, allows the child to securely explore their environment to allow more social and cognitive connections, and aids the ability for the child to get their needs met, which all will have an influential impact on the satisfaction in their adult lives. Background A British psychoanalyst named John Bowlby first developed the theory of attachment. During the 1950’s he wanted to understand infants who were in distress after being separated by their parents. Bowlby found that the infants, like other mammal species he observed, that were able to maintain an attachment to their caregiver were more likely to survive to reproductive age. This later evolved into the formation of the different attachment styles that we know today.
- 4. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 4 Bowlby’s research evolved throughout the 60’s and 70’s as he began working with Kenneth Craik. Together they developed the concept of internal working models, which a study by Sherman et al (2015) found that “the mechanism through which children translate caregiving experiences into an attachment pattern is via experience-based mental representations of their caregivers' likely behavior, known broadly as internal working models” (p. 132). In current day, John Bowlby’s theory of attachment is still widely used to understand how our attachment styles affect infant-child relationships, friendships, and adult romantic relationships. Research One study, done on how attachment styles affect adult’s choices in their career path, used the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale to determine how their coping mechanisms, developed from their attachment styles in childhood, affect their professional success. Gwendolyn Wishard (2008) found that “the prestige and class of one’s job impact the individual’s self-image, confidence of their abilities, and the worth of their education and professional self” (p. 13). The research then indicated that “The impact of this societal message should be noted and addressed on a clinical level, especially when negative projections from early childhood have been internalized” (Wishard, 2008). The trends in the research over parenting and attachment is typically qualitative research. The researchers gather non-numerical data by using the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale and observations within the relationships for their findings on attachment styles. Child Development Relation The first two years of a child’s life are a very important and are an impressionable part of their life. At this age, they are in the midst of the Trust vs. Mistrust stage, which is the first stage of Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. This stage is what shapes the child’s view
- 5. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 5 of the world and what the child can and cannot trust. The child’s caretakers are the first line of defense when it comes to all of their needs being met. The infant being able to trust the parent allows the infant to have the secure base to go out and explore and trust their environment. However, a study by Carie Green et al (2016) indicates that “When care from adult(s) is inconsistent, inattentive, and abusive, infants develop mistrust and begin to perceive the world as an unsafe and unpredictable place” (p. 1030). Attachment and parenting can be applied to almost all aspects of life, especially anything that involves working with children. It is understood that attachment styles reflect issues in child- parent relationships, romantic relationships, and friendships, but how does this affect the child in the classroom? Teachers often have classrooms full of children with all types of different backgrounds. At times of frustration, a child who will not wait their turn or struggles to stay focused on their tasks become easy to label as a difficult student. But understanding that these behavioral issues are likely stemmed from their attachment style between the child and their caretaker at home and understanding how these attachment styles take a toll on the child could help the teacher better understand their classroom. Children who have insecure attachment from a parent who is often negative, inconsistent, unresponsive, or unpredictable will show signs of reduced social competence, lower academic grades, and are less willing to take on tasks that challenge them. Whereas Ritblatt and Longstreth (2019) found that “when young children experience secure, stable attachment relationships with their primary caregivers, they are more likely to develop self-confidence, motivation to learn, and the courage to explore their physical world in school settings” (p.78). The research also indicated that “high quality teacher-student relationships can have positive effects on a student’s future academic, social, and emotional functioning” (Ritblatt and Longstreth, 2019). One way a teacher of a child with an insecure
- 6. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 6 attachment style can improve is increasing one-on-one time with the student and giving them praise for what they see they are doing to improve the child’s confidence in school. Overall, teachers can find a place in their students lives to become a safe base for them in their classrooms to explore and learn, even if they do not have the same safe base at home. Call to Action Of upmost importance, parents need to evaluate parenting styles that have affected their own life and how their parenting style has rooted the attachment between themselves and their own child. Often individuals will use parenting styles that they observed from their own childhood. If this type caused an insecure attachment to their own parents, this negative attachment could spread intergenerationally. Jessica Cooke et al (2019) found that “Specifically, mothers with experiences of adversity may struggle to resolve their trauma and, consequently, are likely to experience parenting difficulties in future relationships with their partners and children” (p.32). Being aware of how their parenting styles affects their child’s attachment could improve the relationship they have with their child. This difficulty in parent-child relationships could derive from the lack of knowledge in first time parents. Amin et al found that “Given the serious responsibilities that parents undertake caring for their infant, first-time parents may face difficulties and lack self-efficacy in fulfilling the expectations of their new roles. This is a pertinent issue, given the impact it has on parenting quality and, eventually, infant development” (Amin et al, 2016). Having a lack of self-efficacy and confidence in their parenting ability can lead to negative effects on the relationship between parent and child. A solution to this could be a learning program within the hospital or through prenatal clinics that can educate first time parents on the effects of parenting styles, how they
- 7. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 7 affect the child’s attachment styles, along with other parenting classes such as feeding, play, child-care, and even the socio-emotional and cognitive development stages of infants.
- 8. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 8 References Cooke, J. E. (2019). Maternal adverse childhood experiences, attachment style, and mental health: Pathways of transmission to child behavior problems. Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal., 93, 27-37. Green, C., Kalvaitis, D., & Worster, A. (2016). Recontextualizing psychosocial development in young children: a model of environmental identity development. Environmental Education Research, 22(7), 1025–1048. https://doi-org.proxy remote.galib.uga.edu/10.1080/13504622.2015.1072136 Liyana A., N. A., Tam, W. W. S., & Shorey, S. (2018). Enhancing first-time parents’ self- efficacy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of universal parent education interventions’ efficacy. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 82, 149–162. https://doi- org.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.03.021 Ritblatt, S. N., & Longstreth, S. (2019). Understanding Young Children’s Play: Seeing Behavior Through the Lens of Attachment Theory. YC: Young Children, 74(2), 78. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy- remote.galib.uga.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=136170492&site=eds-live Sherman, L. J., Rice, K., & Cassidy, J. (2015). Infant capacities related to building internal working models of attachment figures: A theoretical and empirical review. Developmental Review, 37, 109–141. https://doi-org.proxy- remote.galib.uga.edu/10.1016/j.dr.2015.06.001 Wishard, G. C. (2008, May 8). Attachment style and identity construction: the choice of profession as one method of culturally mediating, locating and fulfilling attachment needs
- 9. HDFS 2950 Final Paper 9 both interpersonally and societally. Retrieved December 2, 2019, from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/567f/dac926ec0708dacfcc27cac2f4f6be68d268.pdf.