Child Attachment Disorganization

In the earliest stages of development, emotions are diffuse and infants have little control over their behavioral expression, relying instead on the dyadic regulation provided by their caregivers’ responses to behavioral signals. Attachment disorders form in infancy and early childhood as a result of instability in the child-caregiver relationship. Attachment-disordered children typically have experienced abusive or neglectful care, multiple changes between caregivers and environments, or the sudden loss of a parent or parents.

Research has revealed that there is a strong relationship between insecure attachment and a history of abuse and neglect (Begle, Dumas & Hanson, 2010). Insecure attachments are formed due to parenting stress and abusive parenting behavior. Parenting stress and abusive parenting behavior form children’s mental schemas of how the world works based upon early interactions with caregivers. These mental schemas construct their expectations about relationships. Ultimately

The importance of a healthy attachment in early childhood development can lead to a better adult development and skills for daily life. A secure and healthy attachment to the caregiver in infancy to adolescence showcases the importance of building strong relationships and coping skills during periods of stress and anxiety. The research that has been found, goes into detail about the different types of attachments that infants and children can develop as well as what negative and positive aspects come along with the attachments.

' (Haith, 2014b, p. 466) Although a secure attachment does not occur from birth, ‘babies show signs of attachment through smiling, eye contact and crying. ' (Brandon et al., 2015) This shows the child 's main caregiver needs to begin to bond with their child for them to form a secure attachment. Bowlby believed ‘caregivers who neglect their children, bring up avoidant children. ' (Larose, & Bernier, 2001, p. 96-120). ‘Ambivalent/resistant children show negative behaviours to gain attention from others. ' (Kobak et al., 1993, p. 231-245) These statements show children who have an insecure attachment with their caregiver have a risk in behaviour problems. They will also have a less chance of developing their social and emotional skills effectively.

Parenting and attachment styles influence the temperament during infancy and toddler years. Parenting styles are strategies and techniques that parents use during child rearing. Attachment refers to a secure emotional connection, such as a union among a mother and child. Temperament is the nature of an individual in which affects behavior. Parenting and attachment work hand in hand with influencing the temperament of the child. Three types of children are form upon identifying the characteristics of their behavior; the easy child, the difficult child and the slow-to-warm-up child (Berk, 2010). The easy child embrace new experiences and form consistent schedules. The difficult child is challenged by new experiences and often display negative reactions. The slow-to-warm-up child shy away from routine and gradually envelope new experiences. These characteristics of the child ultimately express their social-emotional development, which is influenced by their initial interaction with parents and caregivers. In example, the easy child’s parents provides high levels of trust, encouraging the infant with feeling secure. In return, the child feels as though the world is trustworthy, making is easier to face new experiences. This dictates the behavior they express toward others. Parenting and forms of attachment play an essential role in both the temperament and social-emotional development of the child. Furthermore, an analysis of the affects that authoritative and permissive

It also involves social context and behavior. At around 12 months the Attachment relationships are by insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant types. Disorganized attachment is where the parent seems to be disconnected and dissociated with the infant. Parenting style and behavior tend to interfere with the children’s formation of attachment. Parental intrusiveness is a no contingent, verbal directives or physical behaviors in parents that constrain the children’s activities and behavior. In this study parents believed that discipline and control and child temperament had no significant correlation now were they correlated with attachment disorganization. Child gender did significantly show a higher disorganization for boys than girls negative intrusive parenting at age 6 months, parental belief in discipline and control at age 6 months, and child difficult temperament at age 6 months. Overall, Negative intrusive parenting did have an impact on attachment disorganization and children temperament. Negative intrusive parenting style can lead to provoke fear in young children which then reflects to the children being disorganized attachment as early as 6 months. Parenting style has a large effect on the child’s attachment and temperament as they grow older. Parenting strong belief in discipline and control could lead to a long term consolidate and stabilize negative

A child who has disruptive attachment will face many issues during their lifetime. The areas that will be affected relate to their behaviour, emotional and also the relationship they have during childhood and into adulthood. These impacts due to grief, loss, abuse, maltreatment, parental health issues, could be mental or physical health related. These issues can be ongoing, temporary and yet will affect issues of their primary carer will be ongoing and affect every part of the child’s life (Doyle, 2012).

Treatment strategies are not as well established for disorganized attachment as they are with other attachments. However, there is a critical need to develop these strategies as this particular population struggles immensely with issues such as self-regulation, the development and maintenance of relationships, as well as many other conditions that affect their daily lives. An important and critical time for treatment is during early childhood, as the longer a person struggles with disorganized attachment, the more difficult it is to treat and correct that attachment. There are a number of different treatments that may be utilized, and researchers are in the process of determining their effectiveness. There have been some case studies that have discussed the potential for individual therapies that have a focus on both emotional regulation and the growth of relational abilities through non-directive play according to Zilberstein (2010, p.89) Other studies have instead choose to focus on the changes that are elicited through the basic parent-child

A child’s ability to function and comply with society’s rules and regulations rely on a healthy early childhood attachment. Attachment is the biological instinct for infant to seek closeness to their caregiver. A secure attachment develops through consistent and positive, interactions between the caregiver and the child. A child’s physical development, mental development, social development, and ability to form daily living skills, all begin to develop through that secure development but continues to develop through continued nurture throughout that child’s life. Children who fail to receive a secure attachment will most likely struggle with self-regulation making it hard to control behaviors and impulses.

The most intense aspect of the avoidant attachment style would be leading into disorganized, which is characterized by behaviors that do not make sense. This often is manifested in unpredictable, confusing, or erratic behaviors. Researchers have found that this is due to the fact that individuals with a disorganized attachment often can’t make sense of their experiences, and not able to form a coherent narrative of what is going on around them. For those that suffered abuse, they may offer strange explanations about their abusive experiences.

Attachment theory is the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). It states that the caregiver-infant exchange is the foundation for all self-regulatory capacities. The physiological regulation occurs when caregiver-infant exchanges are marked by congruency and attunement (Schore, 2003). Infants with secure attachment experienced this attuned and congruent response by their caregiver, thus appropriately expanding their coping strategies for managing distress in the service of regulation (Padykula, 2010). In other words, Attachment Theory says that when an infant does not get the needed attention and predictable care from their caregiver, their ability to regulate themselves is severely effected. In human behavior specifically, Bowlby (1969) identified goal-directed behaviors as links within a chain. Each act sent stimuli terminating its unique goal while activating the next link. This stimuli was either external or intrapsychic. Attachment Trauma is when the caregiver is not emotionally attuned, and instead of being a regulating force, extreme levels of stimulation and arousal are induced. This results in very high stimulation in abuse, and/or very low stimulation in neglect (Padykula,

Ainsworth et al (1978) was the first to empirically classify an infant’s attachment style, through the use of a series of consecutive separations and reunions, with an infant and their primary caregiver. This experiment is known as the Strange Situation (Ainsworth et al., 1978) and aimed to illustrate what “attachment style” a child’s behaviour fell under, during these separations and reunions. The findings highlighted three main attachment styles. Securely attached (type A), the child is distressed during separation, however is easily comforted by care giver on reunion. Insecure Avoidant (type B), the child ignores or does not respond when reunited with care giver after separation. Anxious/ Ambivalent (type C) infant is not soothed by caregiver after during reunion after separation. Later a fourth attachment style was added by Main and Solomon (1986) disorganised (type D), the child shows no clear attachment behaviour. It is believed that from these attachment styles, disorders can

An infant with a secure attachment style has a natural bond with their parent, where they are able to trust them, at the same time leaving their side to discover and explore their surroundings. In an insecure/resistant attachment the relationship the child has with their mother or caregiver is very clingy, thus making them very upset once the caregiver is away. When the mother or caregiver is back they are not easily comforted and resist their effort in comforting them. In an insecure/avoidant attachment the infant is, “indifferent and seems to avoid the mother, they are as easily comforted by a stranger, as by their parent” (Siegler 2011, p.429). Lastly, the disorganized/disoriented attachment is another insecure attachment style in which the infant has no way of coping with stress making their behavior confusing or contradictory. Through these brief descriptions of the attachment theory, many researchers have defined the turning point in which each attachment definition can have an influence on one’s self esteem, well-being and their marital relationship.

Despite the reiteration by Bowlby that the basic essential dynamics of Attachment Theory covered the normative dynamics exhibited by children in accordance with the attachment behavioral system, there are notable are individual deviations in the manner in which children assess the accessibility of the caregiver or the attachment figure. Additionally, there are discernable differences in the manner that infants regulate their attachment traits as a response to the corresponding threats. The individual differences in the attachment patterns only surfaced upon the study by Bowlby’s colleague Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999) (Matos et al. 149-165). Ainsworth commenced the systematic study of child-parent separations upon which she articulated a formal

However, the position being mother or father, as primary or moderator, showed parallel results in the outcome. In other words, one secure relationship in infancy may be sufficient in buffering behavioral problems in a child. The research conducted did have its limitations in ethnic diversity and in the modest size of the group studied. By the convergence of multiple attachment relationships, along with culture, that has changed dramatically; this study was successful, informative and answered the researcher’s