What is Attachment?

Attachment is the deep and enduring emotional bond that children form with those they depend upon for care. Attachment relationships develop between a child and parent or caregiver early in life within the context of the child needing to feel safe, secure, and protected. These attachment needs are activated when a child is in distress (i.e. sick, hurt, hungry, or tired).  Attachment is the instinctive mechanism by which infants and children attempt to ensure their survival by motivating their caregivers to take care of them. Attachment behaviours include crying, holding arms out, following the caregiver, and asking to be held. Exhibiting attachment behaviours is how infants and children attempt to bring their caregivers close in order to satisfy their attachment needs.

The degree of consistent, sensitive, and responsive caregiving a parent/caregiver provides when a child is in distress determines whether a child forms a secure or insecure attachment relationship with that parent/caregiver. If a child’s caregiver responds in a sensitive and consistent manner to the child’s distress, the child will develop a secure attachment. Securely attached children feel confident that the caregiver will be there for them and are able to use the attachment figure as a secure base from which to explore the environment. If a child’s caregiver does not consistently respond in a sensitive manner to the child’s distress, the child develops an insecure attachment. Depending on the pattern of response from the caregiver, a child may form an anxious-avoidant or anxious-resistant style of insecure attachment.

Insecurely attached children have beliefs or internal working models that they cannot trust their attachment figures to respond to their distress and that they are not worthy of love and care. If the caregiver has experienced unresolved trauma, loss, or ongoing abuse, and as a result exhibits frightening or frightened behaviour, the child will develop a model of insecure attachment that is disorganized, in which the child sees the world as unpredictable and frightening. Children with disorganized insecure attachment are not able to develop an adaptive pattern of behaviour, and this can have serious long term consequences. Over time, these internal working models become more entrenched and difficult to change and impact how the child sees the world and interacts with others.

Why does it matter?

The quality of the attachment relationship has a significant impact on a child’s later social, emotional, and cognitive development. Research clearly indicates the consequences of troubled or insecure attachment include the child developing: relationship problems (e.g. detachment, superficial links, lack of empathy, over-dependence or over-independence); emotional problems (e.g. chronic depression, aggressiveness, intolerance to a frustration or a time-limit, poor self-esteem); and delayed development (lack of exploration and curiosity, intellectually slow, delayed language development, school difficulties).

Many factors, including environment, characteristics of the parent/caregiver, and characteristics of the child affect the ability of the parent/caregiver to respond in a sensitive and consistent manner to the child.  Characteristics of the parent/caregiver and the environment that can have an impact on the parent/caregiver’s ability to respond to the child’s attachment needs include: insecure attachment with family of origin, unresolved mourning or trauma, domestic violence and post traumatic stress disorder, poverty, isolation, multiple moves, low education, single parenthood, immigration, mental health problems, alcoholism, drugs, judicial trouble, effects of neglect, abuse or placement in care experienced in childhood, stress, unemployment, health problems, and young parent.  Characteristics of a child that can have an impact on the parent’s ability to sensitively meet the needs of the child include: sensory incapacity, prematurity, low birth weight, difficult temperament, poor adaptability, and history of previous placement.    

Everyone should be made aware of the importance of healthy, secure caregiver-child relationships for healthy child development. The effects of environmental factors, such as poverty and isolation need to be considered and addressed by the community and society at large. Caregivers (parents, grandparents, daycare workers) need to be provided with information on how to promote the development of healthy attachment relationships. Families living in conditions of risk for their children developing insecure attachment relationships need to be supported to assist the caregivers to develop (and use) skills to respond in a sensitive and consistent manner to their child’s attachment needs. Evidence suggests that the most effective way to increase caregiver sensitivity, and eventually secure attachment of the child, are interventions that: take place after the child is six months old, include fewer than six sessions, and are behaviourally focused (i.e. feedback on parent sensitivity). These interventions can take place in home or office settings and can be done by professionals or lay professionals.