Attachment Part I

When babies are tiny, they rely on their parents for everything: physical needs, mental stimulation, emotional warmth, cleanliness, interactive modeling. Some babies have the luxury of having a consistent, attentive parent. These children are said to develop a secure attachment to their parents. They also are the most likely of any attachment type to have secure, long lasting relationships.

Sometimes a child's caretaker is "on" and sometimes they're "off" (absent somehow). So while the parent is present, the child's needs are met. The rest of the time they pine for their parent, wishful, tearful, and worried that they'll be abandoned and miss out on their parent's love forevermore. These children grow up to be people pleasers or clingy partners who frequently wonder whether or not they are truly loved or secure in the relationship.

Children whose parent doesn't seem to recognize their needs, or who doesn't give eye contact or attention, often form something called an avoidant attachment style. Perhaps the parent is an alcoholic or has a mental illness and can't give a child the attention she needs. But that little girl learns quickly that no matter what she does, she can't get her mother to connect to her. So she quits trying. The problem is that she assumes that she can't get anyone else's consistent attention either so she becomes a loner.

There are other reasons why children form certain attachment styles. A child can tend toward an anxious or avoidant attachment style if they have frequent hospitalizations that keeps them separated from their parent. This is through no fault of the parent--it is just how life happens. It can happen as a result of abuse, divorce, or other family disruption such as incarceration or service in the war. The child may have recalled happy, secure days. But the sudden change and emotional disorientation leads to an anxiety that is manifested in future relationships as fear that it will quickly change for the worst, too.

The kinds of attachments that we facilitate with our babies and young children become templates for how they relate to significant others as adults. It is a serious thing to have children and to raise them to set in place lifelong relational trends. God must really love parents and have mercy on those little ones who depend on them.