Attachment is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot in the world of parenting these days. We hear about attachment theory, attachment style, and attachment parenting. We might think we understand what's meant by these things. Attachment equals a bond, simple enough, right? But there’s a bit more to it, and as a parent or someone who may have experienced attachment wounds, it can be really helpful to have a more detailed understanding. So today, we're talking about childhood attachment and what it all means.

What is attachment?

Attachment is a fairly broad area of study in the world of psychology. Boiled down to its basics, it's trying to answer questions related to how a child responds to their caregivers. Based on the groundbreaking works of both John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, there are four different attachment types. This has been shown to be the case in repeated studies with different types of caregivers, ages of children, various cultures, and so on, using the strange situation experiment.

Strange Situation:

In the original strange situation experiment first performed by Mary Ainsworth, babies between the ages of 12-18 months came into the research facility with their mothers. They interacted in a room set up with toys and other safe objects suitable for children that age. The mother would briefly leave the room and then return. All the while, the researchers would watch how the babies respond to their mother leaving them in an unfamiliar environment and then how they responded to their mother's return, as well as how the parent interacted with them. What they found is that children tend to have 2 different possible types of attachment; secure or insecure.

Secure Attachment:

This is the ideal attachment. The child can consistently rely on their caregiver to meet their physical, mental, and emotional needs. The relationship feels safe, and there is a strong bond. The child knows that they can go to the caregiver for support when needed and feels safe to explore the world. In the strange situation experiments, the babies would show signs of distress when their mother left the room and were then calmed and soothed by them when they returned. Once soothed, the children would go back to exploring the objects in the room.

Insecure Attachments:

There are 3 different types of insecure attachment found in the experiments as follows:

Ambivalent: This results from a parent being unable to consistently meet a child's physical, mental, or emotional needs. Though a parent may not intend to neglect their child, things like high stress, substance abuse, or their own unmet mental health needs might be getting in the way of consistency. No matter the cause, the child learns they cannot always rely on their caregiver. In the strange situation experiments, when there is an ambivalent attachment type, the child becomes distressed when the caregiver leaves the room but then ignores them when they return.

Avoidant: In this attachment type, children show little or no preference for their caregiver over a stranger. In research on attachment, the children experiencing this will take little notice of whether their caregiver is present or absent. I recently watched this play out between a parent and child when I took my own daughter to the lake this summer. While we were swimming, I saw a dad with his preschool-aged daughter; he stood out in the middle of the lake while she played at the shore. Rather than engaging with her by joining in with what she was doing and entering her world, he would occasionally call her name from the middle of the lake - she would briefly look in his direction and then return to what she had been doing as though he wasn't there. This dad clearly wanted to have a shared experience with his daughter but was expecting that she would give him attention, completely clueless that it needed to work the other way around; he needed to join her. It was heartbreaking to witness. Later on, she started to play with another child and became deeply engaged in that interaction and paid no mind to where her dad was or what he was doing. You could see from the girl's avoidant response to her father that this wasn't the first time her dad had been unable to meet her where she was at. Like others with an avoidant attachment type, this child had learned to avoid seeking connection with her father,.

Disorganized: Researchers state that this can be the most troubling attachment type to witness. Children who have a disorganized attachment figure will display an odd assortment of behaviors during the strange situation - it's as though they long to connect but have learned that their caregiver might have a scary response. They may cry for attention one minute, followed by silence or disconnection, even though the caregiver has done nothing but walk into the room; they seem confused or disoriented by the caregiver’s presence. This attachment type is tied to an extreme inconsistent response from the parent or caregiver; at times they are a source of comfort, but at other times they are a source of terror. These children might come from homes where there is abuse and complete chaos. In other words, this attachment type is most often the result of a highly traumatic childhood. It is believed that this is the most difficult of the insecure attachments because at least with ambivalent and avoidant there is a consistency that the growing child's mind can organize itself around. Though it's not healthy, at least they can grow up with a sense that the world is predictable and reliable, creating a more stable foundation for recovering from what occurred with the insecure caregiver. On the other hand, with a disorganized attachment type, the child has no sense of predictability or consistency. There is no model on which to make sense of their world, and recovery, though certainly does happen, might be a longer and more difficult process.

5 Quick Facts About Attachment Types:

1. It's all about the parents and caregivers: Children form these attachments based on the responses they get from their caregivers. Though you might see things look a little different for neurodiverse children - kids on the spectrum may appear more avoidant, but usually the primary caregivers learn the small signs that they are engaging, and highly sensitive children take longer to return to baseline when distressed. Otherwise, the attachment type is a reaction to how they are treated by those who care for them. The adults are the ones responsible for the attachment type, not the child.

2. Attachment types are not set in stone: Though there is evidence of attachment types taking form as early as 9 months, children are not stuck with being attached to a caregiver in a certain way for the rest of their lives. Say a parent is really struggling, but then they get some support and education around bonding, improved communication, and learn healthy boundaries. With consistent improvement in parenting over time, the attachment type can change from insecure to secure. The amazing part of this is that it's never too late! Earlier is certainly better, but there are times where a parent can form a secure attachment with their adult children. It's harder after a lifetime of hurts, but it is possible.

3. Children can have many attachment figures: Children will have multiple attachment types with different caregivers. As was often the case with caregiver/child research, the initial research was done with mothers, but it doesn't stop there. Now we know that babies first develop an attachment to their primary caregiver, but as they age, it broadens to other caregivers. Children will develop an attachment to anyone who takes a role in their care. This includes biological parents, step-parents, adoptive parents, but also grandparents or even teachers or daycare workers. And children will have a different attachment type with each caregiver. Remember, it's not about the child, but about how that caregiver responds to the child. There can be a secure attachment with dad, avoidant with mom, and then disorganized with grandpa or any other constellation of attachments.

4. Attachment type and attachment style are different: Attachment style has been something I've been hearing more about from my clients over the past few years, and it often gets confused with attachment type. So to clarify, attachment style refers to relationship patterns in adulthood - most commonly with romantic relationships. Though they are different, attachment style is based off the research on attachment types. The idea is that if you experienced an insecure attachment growing up, you are more likely to struggle with forming and maintaining trusting, healthy relationships later in life. We do know that your early relationships are the blueprint from which you understand the rest of the world, so it's not a far leap to say that your ability to form a healthy adult relationship is deeply impacted by your experiences growing up. Things like being involved with a toxic partner, believing you have to bend over backward to be loved, or feeling anxious about being abandoned can often be traced to insecure attachment types.

5. Attachment is inter-generational: Secure or insecure attachments can be passed down from one generation to the next. If we go back to the idea that the way we were parented creates a blueprint for all future relationships, you can see why it can be very difficult for someone who had an insecure attachment growing up to respond to their own children in a different way, especially during times of high stress. However, just like attachment types aren't set in stone, the generational transmission of trauma doesn't have to be either. Every parent has a chance to make new choices in how they respond to their children's needs. It's extraordinarily difficult to do this, though. You might know what you DON'T want to do with your children, but knowing what you want to do instead doesn't just magically happen. Luckily there are all kinds of resources out there to support parents looking to make sense of their own childhood experiences and learn how to do it differently for the next generation.

If you're like most people, you probably read this thinking about your own attachment type with your parents or caregivers and wondered what kind of attachment your children have with you. Maybe you even noticed a little anxiety, worry, or difficult memories come up around this. That's really normal, even I start to wonder if I'm getting this right as I think about parenting and attachment. The good news is you don’t have to do this alone. If you're ready to start working through your own past and feel confident that you can create a secure attachment with your own children, connect with me here!

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