Attachment Theories for Child Development

The early years of any child are very crucial towards their development and health. It means that the educators, health professionals, parents and other people have to work together if they are to help children grow up until they attain their maximum potential. Child development that is considered as healthy means that the child regardless of their abilities, in this case even those with special needs have the capabilities to grow up in an environment that fulfills their emotional, psychological, educational and social needs. Some factors that can play towards attaining this at home include enough sleep, proper nutrition, playing, talking, reading and exercise.

The most important person who has an influence on a child’s development milestone is a parent. This is because the parent takes care of the child from the time they are born until when they are ready to go to school. Parenting may take various forms of which some may result into positive or negative outcomes. An authoritarian and over parenting technique of parenting might affect the child development. A parent who oversteps their duties might involve themselves in certain activities of a child of which they are expected to do alone. This can include doing homework for a child and simple chores like making the bed and removing dishes from the table (Neville, 2006). According to Neville, (2006), a child who is dependent on the parent to do such simple activities is bound to lack responsibility thus self-esteem. They will always depend on other people do to their tasks for they do not believe they can. This means the psychological development of such a child is affected. An authoritarian parent despite enforcing harsh discipline on the child, it might bring out good external qualities in the child such as obedience and politeness. Nevertheless, from an internal viewpoint, they suffer from psychological and existential problems thus they have low self-esteem and self-worth.

Once the child is at school, the educators also have a role towards ensuring the child has a healthy child development. Educators should make sure that the classroom environment is one with a nurturing, supportive and successful atmosphere for the child. At school, the teacher can identify children who may need more time in acquiring the skills and knowledge they need to perform various tasks assigned to them. It is the duty of the educators to ensure that such children have been given individualized attention and customization of the classroom curriculum in such a manner that will see them overcome their challenges. It is evident that educators have a role towards child development of which if educators ignore this role and focus on giving a child little education, the child is bound not to have certain aspects of their lives met. These include social, emotional and psychological of which they can be fulfilled by a teacher who is ready to offer the child more than their educational needs.

Similarly, the health care providers have an important role towards child development. According to the World Health Organization, millions of children in the world do not fully reach their developmental potential as a result of poor health and poverty. The health sector in a country can play a vital role towards child development. This is because; the optimal window through which child development begins is through preventing long term damage during pregnancy through the first five years of growth. Health care providers despite having an indirect relationship with children, are still important in assisting the parents towards boosting their child’s development.

The bond that connects a person to another across time and space, and has a deep and enduring emotional impact is referred to as an attachment. Attachment does not have to be mutual in nature for an individual may have an attachment to another who does not have a similar bond with them. Among the children, the attachment is characterized by various behaviors particularly when they are trying to seek closeness to a person when they feel threatened or upset. For an adult, the attachment they have towards their children is evident in how they respond aptly to their needs. However, the main aim of attachment is not the role of a parent as a playfellow, caregiver, disciplinarian nor a teacher. Rather, attachment is whereby the child will use a prime caregiver as a safe base from which they can discover and when needed, as an anchorage for protection and source of relaxation. This behavior brought about by attachment is not only seen in some individuals but by all people regardless of their cultures, race religion or other demographic differences.

The attachment should not be considered bonding, because according to Klaus and Kennel, for bonding to existing between a child and parent, there has to be skin-to-skin contact during an early critical period. This attachment perception has not been proven in any way to have a relationship with attachment (Benoit, 2004). On the other hand, the two terms bonding and attachment have continuously been used interchangeably by various professionals and non-professionals. According to the attachment theory, it provides insight on how the child-parent relationship emerges and what influence this will have towards their overall development.

The seminal work of John Bowlby forms the groundwork for which the attachment theory is based on. Bowlby operated as a psychiatrist in a Child Guidance Clinic in London in the 1930s. He involved himself in treating a large number of emotionally disturbed children. As such he started to gain interest on what the affiliation between a youngster and his/her mother was in relation to the child’s cognitive development, social and emotional needs. He worked with James Robertson, and they observed that there was an increase in the distress levels of a child when they were separated from their mothers the child’s anxiety levels remained high despite being fed by their caregivers (Bretherton, 2010).

According to a previous study by Dollard and Miller, they had claimed that based on the behavioral theory of attachment, children are more attached to the mothers when they are feeding them (Shaver and Mikulincer, 2005). Bowlby and Robertson’s theory contradicted these findings which led to them defining attachment as “an enduring psychological connectedness amongst human beings.” As such, the attachment was adaptive for it helped in boosting a child’s survival levels and in case the child was under stress of felt threatened, they have a universal need to seek closeness with their caregivers.

Bowlby’s theory was based on evolutionary changes of a human being which have been evolving for millions of years for they increase the chances of survival. He suggested that the baby would come to the world when they are already pre-programmed to form an attachment with others for their survival is based on it. The child can cry and smile that are seen as innate “social releaser” behaviors which end up stimulating a similar innate response from their caregiver. As such, care and responsiveness are the major determinants of attachment and not food. By attachment being described as innate, it means that as a result of evolution, a certain behavior had been produced which is crucial for the survival of children. Most children are born helpless and depend on actions of the caregiver for them to have a good well-being. If babies were born and they did not behave in such a manner that would make adults care for them, they would not become attached to the children thus the survival of the babies would not allow them to reach their reproductive age. As such, it is right for one to state that as a result of natural selection, babies have genes that allow them to develop attachment forming behaviors.

In 1952, Lorenzo was able to illustrate this innate aspect of attachment in his studies of imprinting using geese eggs. He took a number of eggs and kept them until they were about to hatch. One group of the eggs was put with the mother goose while he put the other eggs besides himself for a few hours. After they had hatched, Lorenzo imitated the sounds made by a mother goose, and they started to follow him everywhere he went. According to Lorenzo’s findings, eh was able to determine, during the first 12 hours after the baby geese hatch, they follow the first object they see. It is this process that Lorenzo referred to as imprinting which led to his conclusion of why attachment is genetically programmed and innate. As such, imprinting has significances; mutually for short duration survival and in the longer period bring into being inner outlines for future relationships. Imprinting happens short of any feeding taking place. If no attachment has been established for 32 hours, it’s improbable any attachment will perpetually develop. To further prove his findings, Lorenzo mixed the goslings from the mother goose and those that he had kept him in an upside-down box. This allowed them to mix and after the box was removed, there was a separation whereby half went to Lorenzo and the other half to the mother goose. Lorenzo concluded that once imprinting has occurred, it is irreversible and the Gosling cannot imprint on any other thing. This is similar to the attachment an infant experiences, and it forms an outline through which other future attachments are based. It is referred to as the internal working model which is also critical in guiding future adult relationships.

Harlow’s also played a critical role towards trying to prove that an attachment between infants and their caregivers is not dependent on who provides them with food as suggested by the behavioral theorists. In his study, he used rhesus monkeys, and his final finding was that the baby rhesus monkeys were highly dependent on their mothers not only for food but well-being, socialization, and safety. In his study, he used infant rhesus monkeys that were raised in isolation and others by surrogate mothers. For the former infant monkeys, they had inexplicable behavior and were unable to communicate or socialize with other monkeys when put together after some time. In the case of the latter monkeys, they would return to their surrogate mothers after getting milk from their birth mothers especially when a frightening object was put in their cages. As such, it proved that food did not play any part in attachment formation (Van Rosmalen et al., 2012).

Bowlby’s theory is based on three important aspects. The aspects state that babies and their mothers have been naturally programmed to be attached, attachment is a natural procedure that transpires in the course of critical period or not at all and attachment styles that have been established during early stages of a child will play a part in future attachment styles over the continuity hypothesis.

Critical period 

A critical period according to Bowlby is the period whereby a certain behavior occurs, and most of the developmental processes occur during this window of opportunity. In case this behavior does not fully occur during this stage, it might not develop as expected. According to Bowlby, for an infant, the critical period falls between the ranges of 0-30 months. It is at this stage whereby all the conditions necessary for the formation of attachment should be provided by the caregiver for if it does not form, the attachment will never from in future. Fries and Pollak, (2004) state that from a study that was carried out in 1998 using Romanian orphans who had been subjected to orphanages without any adult contact. As soon as they were adopted by parents from USA and UK, they formed a strong attachment with their new parents. According to Bowlby, he argued that the final age for attachment to be formed was 2.5 years old, however from this study, the older children formed attachments after their adoption though it was at a much lower rate, unlike the infants.

Bowlby argued that the attachment between a child and the caregiver was monotropic in nature. This means that a child forms one distinct exceptional attachment with one key attachment figure, in this case, the mother. However, there is a possibility for the development of other attachments which he termed as hierarchy attachments such as that of a child and the father, brothers, sisters, grandparents, etc. Heine and Ruby, (2010) state that a study was carried out in Israel to determine monotropy. In Israeli kibbutzim, during the day, the babies are cared for by a key caregiver as their mothers work; however, the children return to them during the evenings. Despite the fact that the mothers are not the primary caregivers’ strong emotional attachment is still seen between the mothers and the babies.

According to the continuity hypothesis, Bowlby stated that the attachment style by which the baby developed as they were still young would equip them with an internal operational model of affiliations. This will help the child in that it acts as an outline for their future relationship behavior once they grow much older through to their adult stages. A child who feels secure will have an internal working model that is positive fro they were able to receive sensitive, emotional care from their key attachment figure. A child who is insecure-avoidant will have an unworthy internal operational model for its main attachment figure responded undesirably to them during the delicate period required for attachment development. A study was conducted by Hazan and Shaver to decide what is the link between adult relationship and child attachment types. They were able to determine that, children who were securely attached had a secure, loving and steady relationship with their adult partners. For children who were insecure-avoidant as a result of cold and rejecting mothers, they had insecure relationships that were filled with high jealousy and fear of rejection levels (Hendric and Hedrick, 2000).

Another researcher who elaborated the work of John Bowlby and his attachment theory was known as Mary Ainsworth. In 1965, she collaborated with Bowlby to publish a book titled Child Care and the Birth of Love . The two came up with a process for detecting and evaluating the eminence of attachment in affiliations in relation to a parent and the child. Ainsworth referred to the procedure as “Strange Situation Classification.” In the procedure, she spent weeks with moms and their babies in their home environments. The child and mother would be brought in the room and allowed to have some time together which would then be followed by another Stanger. After an interaction between the three, the mom would leave the child with the stranger and observations were made regarding their behaviors. However, her research has faced a number of condemnations whereby it has been said that her works are based on assumptions that the short-lived partings and reunifications have the same meaning for all the infants. As such, this cannot be used to account for similar attachment behavior in cultures whereby children are subjected to everyday maternal separation. After the procedure, Ainsworth was able to come up with four types of attachments, discussed as follows:

Secure Attachment 

In this type of attachment, the babies used their mothers as a base of exploration. They were able to notice their mothers leaving of which they protested. As soon as the mother came back, the child went back to the mother and held them after which they went back to play. This showed that the mother was emotionally obtainable, understanding and quick to respond to the needs and mental conditions of the child. The internal functioning outline of these babies is expected to be one that anticipates their necessities will be identified and fulfilled. The infants believed that they will be attuned to and emotionally synchronized and that they can do without obstruction play around their surroundings in security (Main et al. 2011).

Avoidant Attachment 

The children did not use their mothers as a secure exploration base. As the mothers left the room, the children would either move towards them or not, and when they came back, they assumed their mothers’ presence and continued playing. As such, it is concluded that such mothers are emotionally inaccessible, insensitive, rejecting and impassive to their children’s needs and mental states (Main, et al, 2011). These children were filled by unsystematic acts of belligerence and were clingier. According to the internal operational model, the parents did not show any response to their children when they are needy thus they end up shutting down and try to become independent. They thus protect themselves by cutting off any contact with the one person who can assist them.

Ambivalent Attachment 

The babies were more alert about their mothers’ whereabouts as they played. As soon as the mother left the room, they were upset, and as soon as she came back, they were very clingy. On the other hand, despite their mothers being present, they still did not seem soothed. As such, it was concluded that the mother was incoherently available for the baby, and when she was accessible, she was frequently preoccupied and un-attuned to the baby in her reactions (Main et al, 2011). These babies were the utmost nervous, insecure, and arduous at home. The likely core functioning model is that even though the mother is accessible, she will not fully calm the child thus they end up over-acting the system of attachment.

Disorganized Attachment 

The babies were disorganized when the mothers’ left the room and even upon her comeback, and they appeared disorganized. They would move towards the mother, away from her and even freeze at a corner. There was no soothing moment for them after making contact with the mother. As such, it is concluded that in the homes of such children, they faced physical or sexual abuse accounts, emotionally troubled caregivers and caregivers a history of drug abuse. Their inner working model of this affiliation is not well-designed. This is because the only source that is supposed to give a soothing sensation to the child is the main source of danger making them disorganized in their minds (Main et al. 2011).

After a child is brought into this world, a lifelong process is initiated made up of mutual adaptation between the child and the caregivers including the entire society. The different relationships and interactions that are formed during the child’s early stage of life serve as a prototype for the different interactions they will encounter in future. For a young child, he/she lacks the ability to use words in expressing how they feel; rather, they use their behaviors in expressing themselves. At times, some parents are not aware of what the mental states and emotional feelings their children are feeling calling for them to become quite attentive. For most parents, it is their wish for the children to grow up into healthy and well-behaved adults who will have the capabilities to take charge of their lives independently.

An important aspect that can help parents tune their children towards a bright future is through developing a very close attachment to their children. As seen from Bowlby, an attachment is developed between a parent and their infant when they are still very young. However, it is clearly evident that they can develop it when they are much older, but it will take a lot of time. Bowlby stated that once a child has development attachment with their primary caregiver they have an emotional connection between the two and they feel more secure about themselves. This is transformed later into the adult lives whereby as seen from the studies carried out about relationships, there is a connection.

Children who were more closely attached to their parents will end up having a successful and stable relationship unlike those who lacked some form of attachment. Ainsworth carried out experiments to determine the importance of attachment to a child and was able to come up with four categories of attachment. These include secure, avoidant, ambivalent and disorganized. According to Boyd, (2007), these attachment types can help psychologist in evaluating the child and assist parents in coming up with better parenting techniques for the child. This indicates that the attachment theory is not only applicable to the caregivers of the child but also the health care providers who deal with infants.

According to Golding (2013), the attachment theory theme is also applicable in a school setting, especially in the classroom. As such, the school system will have the knowledge on how to determine any insecure attachment experiences among their students in the classrooms. This is through ensuring that the teachers are conversant with the signs to look for in case of the insecure children. The educators will, therefore, be able to formulate strategies to which they can help such children and young people. The primary reason for this is because the teacher acts as a substitute attachment figure for the child. As such, youngsters who have a secure logic of self, do not have any problem, sharing the teacher with their classmates unlike those with attachment complications. Their snags will become noticeable in the form of little or no concentration in class. They may also end up having low esteem; thus they tend to stay alone even during break times for they lack the abilities that can help them in socializing.

From the attachment theory, it allows caregivers to know that a child relies on them and if they are not able to respond consistently to the needs and mental states of the child, it will have potentially severe and damaging consequences for the adult that the child will grow. If an adult is unresponsive to an infant, the child will end up becoming anxious for they cannot predict their caregivers' behavior regarding how they will help them, and as such, the child will stop looking up to them for help. It is paramount that caregivers provide a child with an environment that will assist them in having a secure base through having an attachment relationship

References

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Boyd, M. (2007). Psychiatric nursing . Philadelphia, Pa: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Bretherton, I. (2010). Fathers in attachment theory and research: A review. Early Child Development and Care , 180 (1-2), 9-23.

Fries, A. B. W. & Pollak, S. D. (2004). Emotion understanding in postinstitutionalized Eastern European children. Development and psychopathology , 16 (02), 355-369.

Golding, K. S. (2013). Observing children with attachment difficulties in school: A tool for identifying and supporting emotional and social difficulties in children aged 5-11 . London, UK: Jessica Kingsley Pub.

Hendrick, C., & Hendrick, S. S. (2000). Close relationships: A sourcebook . Thousand Oaks [u.a.: Sage Publ.

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Main, M., Hesse, E., & Hesse, S. (2011). Attachment theory and research: Overview with suggested applications to child custody. Family Court Review , 49 (3), 426-463.

Neville, H (2006). Is This a Phase? Child Development and Parent Strategies from Birth to 6 Years . Seattle, Wash: Parenting Press.

Shaver, P. R., & Mikulincer, M. (2005). Attachment theory and research: Resurrection of the psychodynamic approach to personality. Journal of Research in Personality , 39 (1), 22-45.

van Rosmalen, L., van der Horst, F. C., & van der Veer, R. (2012). Of monkeys and men: Spitz and Harlow on the consequences of maternal deprivation. Attachment & human development , 14 (4), 425-437.