Four Patterns Of Attachment Pattern In Children

Early attachments of children to their caregivers are a widely studied subject among psychologists. Childhood attachment theories draw their theses and components from cognitive, behavioral, and psychoanalytic branches of psychology; in the form that attachments deals with what a child is thinking, doing, and the analyses of these attachments in later life (Weiten, 2005). "Attachment refers to the close, emotional bonds of affection that develop between infants and their caregivers." (Weiten, 2005) The age that attachments start forming is usually between 6 to 9 months, depending on the child; prior to this, a child can be handed off to babysitters with little protest, but after attachments begin forming children may develop separation anxiety (Weiten, 2005, Wicks-Nelson & Israel, 2009).

The third attachment is avoidant; which occurs when someone has a hard time to connecting with others. People with this kind of attachment fear being left by their partner, thus, resulting in pushing their partner or the caregiver away from the infant. This attachment creates a separation between the caregiver and infant. According to the book Human Sexuality, this particular act in infants and adults signifies them in an attempt to defend themselves from rejection. A perfect example of this is my very close family friend Alicia (given name). After separating from her longest relationship, she was having a hard time accepting the fact that he had left her. This influenced her to not trusting anyone and become anti-social for a longest period

1. One type of commonly studied attachment pattern are those children that are secure in their relationship with their parents. This means that the child is upset when the parent leaves but is easily comforted by their parents. Children who exhibit this pattern of behavior are said to be secure. Another type of attachment pattern studied is those who are anxious-resistant. This means when reunited with their parents again they aren't easily soothed and exhibit conflicting behaviors of wanted to be comforted but also want to punish their parents for leaving. A child that displays this type of behavior will also be insecure in a strange situation. The third type of attachment pattern studied is children who are anxious-avoidant. This means that

Regardless of the internal or external factors which relate to children, attachment has always thought to be constant between a child and their primary caregiver. However, whether the style of attachment remains stable after the first year of life, remains controversial, due to the magnitude of conflicting findings on this topic. This article will argue that when applying the research to the general population, attachment classifications are inherently fluctuating, though occasionally the environment will permit an unwavering model of attachment. This is discussed by analysing Waters (1978), which obtained a 96% stability rate in a sample of middle class Americans. Nevertheless, Belsky, Campbell, Cohn and Moore (1996), could not replicate this

New research does show that even though the primary attachments develops during infancy as a person grow the types of attachments could be altered with new types of attachments due to positive or negative life events. Secure attachment used to be the most common type of attachment among early people but with the new generation studies shows a decline in it and a small growth in avoidant and resistant attachment

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

“Attachment is an infant’s primary affectional relationship with a caregiver, “quoted from the research paper Parental Behaviors and Beliefs, Child Temperament, and Attachment Disorganization. The possible methods and outcomes of attachment disorganization were inspected and discovered in this correlational research paper. It was hypothesized; by the time an infant reaches twelve months, negative intrusive parenting is a huge leading factor of children’s attachment disorganization. Based off of the affiliation of child difficult temperament, negative intrusive parenting, children’s attachment disorganization and parental strong belief in discipline and control, studies found that negative intrusive parenting is an important factor concerning

Attachment is the formation of a two-way emotional bond between a child and an adult caregiver. It is an important part of developmental psychology, which is concerned with reasons and causes for human behaviour, addressing both nurture and nature aspects of childrearing. John Bowlby (1907-1990) is a key psychologist involved in the studies and theories concerning attachment. He summarised his point and the reason for attachment as follows:

Max has different attachment styles with different people. Attachment is characterized by specific behaviors in children, such as seeking closeness with the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1979). Max has a insecure avoidant attachment with his biological mother because he does not trust her to provide safety during stressful situations (Brandell, 2007). Max remembers being left with his mother 's boyfriend and being fondled. Max knows that his mother is the individual who usually separates him from his primary caregivers. When Max is scheduled to see his mother he begins to cry and cling to his Aunt Kelly. Kathleen was not sensitive to the needs of Max. Kathleen

Berger describes Childhood attachment to create social bonds of the child’s first two years of their psychosocial development. Berger cites the work of John Bowlby and by Mary Ainsworth, who researched about mother-infant relationships (Berger, 2016). Other research by (Simpson and Rholes, 2015; Grossmann, 2014) helped Berger’s studies grow, which was about infants with Down syndrome, autism, on adult relationships with other adults, as well as with their own children, and how it affects their development of social bonds. According to Berger, attachment involves a lasting emotional bond that one person has with another. It begins to form in early infancy and influence a persons close relationships throughout life. John Bowlby, a researcher

Attachment has been described by Ainsworth et al. (1978) in terms of dyadic interactions in which emotional sensitivity and responsiveness were predictive of childhood attachment security. With that in mind, attachment classifications have failed to capture the behaviours that children evoke in their caregivers. EA emphasizes this dyadic relationship and goes above and beyond attachment and sensitivity. It combines attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1980), and emotional regulation perspectives and is influenced by systems theories (Emde, 1980). The construct was first conceptualized by Mahler, Pine, and Bergman (1975) who described EA as the ability to form a healthy “emotional dialogue” between caregiver and child, which promotes exploration

According to the research done by Mario Mikulincer, there is a correlation between attachment style and the mental representation of the self. Six studies were done in order to determine the association between attachment style and multiple aspects of the mental representation of the self in adolescents. “Results indicated that secure and avoidant persons had a more positive view of themselves than anxious-ambivalent persons,” (Mikulincer 1995). Additionally, secure people were found to have a more balanced, complex, and organized self-structure than insecure people, either avoidant or anxious-ambivalent.

The child's attachment behavior System is activated by exposing the child to an unfamiliar playroom, interaction with an unfamiliar adult, and two brief separations from the child's attachment figure. The infant's behavior during the two reunions with the attachment figure reveals the Status of its relationship with the attachment figure. Ainsworth etal. (1978) distinguished three types of attachment: secure (also called B), anxious-avoidant (A), and anxious-ambivalent (C). Subsequent research has revealed a fourth type: anxious-disorganized (D; Main & Solomon, 1986, 1990).

What exactly is “Attachment” and how does it play a major role in a child’s development. And attachment bond is the unique emotional relations ship between a baby and its primary caregiver. The attachment bond is a key factor in the way your infant’s brain organizes itself and influences your child’s social, emotional, intellectual and physical development. In the case of child development attachment does not emerge suddenly but it develops over 4 phrases.

There are many factors that can change and effect the way children grow up. Some of these can of course be positive or negative. A few of the factors that contributed to my personal childhood experience would things like my Hispanic race, the body image that I head as a child and the thoughts that came along with that body image, growing up with being a balanced bilingual, the type of attachment that I shared with my caregiver, in this case being my mother, the type of parents that I grew up with in my childhood being “authoritative parents”, and lastly the way that I had to accommodate to certain things that came into my childhood.