Children's 4 Attachment Styles
Submitted by Rebecca Smith ~ Family Ties Association
With the month of February upon us, a month of love, kindness, and connection, I thought it would be fun to become a little more curious about how children attach to their caregivers. Attachment styles can also help give insight to how children may connect to the world around them and what type of relationships they may have now and in the future.
First and foremost, what is attachment and how does it have a style? Well, attachment theory usually is linked to the work by John Bowlby, a child psychiatrist and child psychologist, who discovered that children tend to express themselves in a few generalized ways around their caregivers; especially during times of separation and distress. Bowlby’s student, Mary Ainsworth, further developed his theory by seeing if attachment styles could be categorized and how specifically, attachments differ between children. In Ainsworth’s research, she engaged children and caregivers in a series of experiments which she called the “Strange Situation” (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969). Essentially, the mother would leave their child in a room and see how they would react to: being with a stranger, being completely alone, and how they were with the stranger once the mother returned and left again (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969). From these experiments, Ainsworth and other researchers discovered that children’s attachment styles are typically categorized into either secure or insecure; there is one type of secure attachment and three different insecure attachment styles (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969).
Let’s dig in and take a look at the typical characteristics of each attachment style.
Secure Attachment. Children that display secure attachments are generally are happy, trusting, calm, and easy going in new environments (James, 1994). Secure children feel protected by caregivers and have a healthy sense of dependence and independence. During the strange situation, children of this attachment style generally showed signs of distress when their caregivers left, but could settle quickly into an activity and were happy when their caregivers returned; they also actively sought out to be comforted by caregivers (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969). Ideally, this is the best attachment style one would want to help create in children and thankfully, most children do fall into this category.
Avoidant-Dismissive Attachment (Insecure). Children displaying an avoidant-dismissive attachment style tend to avoid others and prefers playing with individual items over peers, may be emotionally distant, views other people as cold and rejecting, and may not enjoy hugs or physical contact (James, 1994). When these children were separated from their mothers during the strange situation, they were not distressed when their mothers left and when their mother’s retuned, they tended to show signs of avoidance/ignoring (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969).
Ambivalent (or Anxious-preoccupied) Attachment (Insecure). Children that display an ambivalent/anxious-preoccupied style tend to be anxious, cling to their caregivers, guarded around new people, and may reject hugs/comfort when offered by others (James, 1994). During the strange situation, these children showed high levels of distress when caregivers left, but were ambivalent, resistant or even aggressive when their caregivers return (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969).
Disorganized Attachment (Insecure). Children that display disorganized attachment tend to show confusion, fear, are withdrawn, unresponsive, express high emotions and struggle to regularly manage them, and seek comfort and are withdraw from their caregivers at the same time (James, 1994). Often these children have experienced neglect, abuse, or been mistreated by caregivers (James, 1994). During the strange situation, these children either showed no response when their mother returned or became confused, showing a range of emotions in the presence of their mother (Ainsworth & Whittig, 1969).
As noted above, there are 4 main attachment styles children generally can be categorized into: secure, avoidant-dismissive, ambivalent or anxious-preoccupied, and disorganized. That being said, it’s important to note that as children grow, develop, and experience certain life events, they may show signs of a few of these attachment styles – this is completely normal and part of their healthy development. As well, if your child is displaying more insecure attachment styles, have no worry, you can help foster a more secure attachment through a few simple actions. Overall, secure attachments are fostered by caregivers who help children feel safe, heard, loved, comforted, supported, have allowed children freedom to explore and have created some consistency with their parenting style. We will be going over how to encourage a secure attachment more next month – stay tuned and you’ve got this!
Sources and References
Ainsworth, M., & Whittig, B. A. (1969). Attachment and the exploratory behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. In B. M. Foss (Ed.) Determinants of infant behavior (vol. 4) (pp. 113–136). Methuen.
James, B. (1994). Handbook for treatment of attachment-trauma problems in children. Free Press.
Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-looking-on-child-3933232/