Dubai: When faced with an uncomfortable situation, how does your child respond, if you are not available? More so … how does your child react when you come back to him or her? This reaction can be a key indicator of how securely or insecurely your child is attached to you.
The Attachment Theory, from a parenting perspective, proposes that a child deals with such situations with reduced anxiety and avoidance if the attachment with his or her parent is secure.
The far-reaching effects of a secure attachment
The need for belonging is an essential human need, much like shelter or water … this is the understanding shared by Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, two American psychologists who have intensively studied ‘belongingness’ and how a secure attachment can affect someone’s cognitive processes, emotional patterns, behavioural responses, and health and well-being.
A 1995 study, titled ‘The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation’, Baumeister and Leary, concluded: “The desire for interpersonal attachment may well be one of the most far-reaching and integrative constructs currently available to understand human nature.”
What is secure attachment and why do you need to develop one with your child?
While ‘belongingness’ and the need for a secure attachment are relevant to human beings at any age, developing a secure attachment becomes even more important when it comes to the relationship between parent and children.
Secure attachment is classified by children who show some distress when their caregiver leaves but are able to compose themselves quickly when the caregiver returns.
According to the website, The Attachment Project - attachmentproject.com - secure attachment typically develops in children in the first eighteen months of life. During this formative period, a secure child’s caregiver would have been both emotionally and physically available to them.
“This doesn’t mean that they are perfect caregivers, but that they behaved predictably towards their child and responded to them in the way that they needed when they were upset or required something.
“They ebb and flow in accordance with their child’s needs; at times they are close and nurturing, and on other occasions, they pull back and allow them to explore their world. These caregivers managed to fulfill their child’s needs and not break their trust. They instilled a sense of self-confidence in their child, as well as a belief that others are innately valuable,” the website stated.
Dr Nisreen Yacoub, Associate professor – Psychology at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has spent years studying attachment styles and how they can impact a child’s growth and development. Speaking to Gulf News on the sidelines of a pareting event held in Dubai, titled ‘Parenting Unlabelled - Gender roles in Arab families, she said: “Children with secure attachment have more organised autobiographical memory, focus and expression. They will speak in smaller sentences, with the full information, compared to the children with insecure attachment. They record very high scores in language tests, social abilities and skills and they were better at expressing emotions.”
Four attachment styles
There are four types of attachment styles, secure, anxious/ambivalent, avoidant and disorganised.
“We can assess a secure attachment from a very early age, say when the child is 9 to 10 months,” Dr Nisreen said.
While the type of assessment would vary depending on the child’s age, assessing the attachment style involves putting the child in a strange situation – whether through describing a story in which the child can place himself or herself or through creating the situation in a controlled environment – and then see the child’s reaction when a parent leaves, and how how he or she receives them when the parent returns.
Children with secure attachment have more organised autobiographical memory, focus and expression. They will speak in smaller sentences, with the full information, compared to the children with insecure attachment. They record very high scores in language tests, social abilities and skills and they were better at expressing emotions.
If the child has a secure attachment with his or her parent, they would receive the parent’s return with a level of relief and happiness. However, when it comes to the other three types of attachments, all of which are categorised as insecure, the child’s response would vary.
“They would either have very a very strong ‘self-caring attitude’, where they just will not reach out for help. Or they do reach out for help, but the interaction is quite aggressive,” Dr Nisreen said.
A classic example would be that of a child who got hurt while playing, and ends up bleeding. While the child may go to the mother to seek help, the interaction might be that the mother screams at the child, or dismisses the experience. Both these responses come under ambivalent or avoidant style of attachment.
What is disorganised attachment?
When it comes to disorganised attachment, the word disorganised refers to the child’s response to the situation, which might seem to not directly relate to the situation.
Explaining how children with disorganised attachment respond to stressful situations being presented to them, Dr Nisreen said: “If you put them in a hard situation, like ask them what they would do if they were crying, or hurt their knee, or had a nightmare, they change the theme and give a response that is completely unrelated – ‘I can hear people outside’, or ‘our cat died last night’.”
This, Dr Nisreen states, is the result of trauma, as the children are unable to follow along with the theme of a story, as it might be too hard for them to process.
“This happens when the parents are not stable and their treatment does not address their children’s needs or respects their emotions. When we try to build a secure attachment, it doesn’t mean that we have to spoil the children. But when a child has a secure attachment with their parent, they do trust their parent when they need them,” she said.
Five ways to develop a secure attachment
1. Work on yourself first
“If you are secure yourself, you will treat your children normally,” Dr Nisreen said.
“Whenever I work with parents, I don’t let them work on their children before they work on themselves. They need to change the trust they place in themselves, their values, their own self-respect, so that they are able to build that attachment with their children,” she added.
This might mean building a strong support system, with family members or social relationships that help you address your anxieties, fears or insecurities, or even seek professional help.
“If you don’t have that [support system], you have to seek advice. You need to make sure you are seeking advice from someone whom you can trust and who is a licenced practitioner,” she said.
2. Don’t let your fear control you as parent
Following on from the first tip, it is critical for parents to not try to control every aspect of their child’s life. A secure attachement is built with a balance of freedom and support.
“If I can learn how to protect my child from my fears then I am going to let my child grow … giving the child the full chance to experience life, without trying to control him or her. How can I do that? By working on my own fears or my selfishness,” Dr Nisreen said.
3. Find the right window for quality time
While 10 minutes of quality time can be a lot more effective in building a strong connection with children, compared to a whole day spent without any real intention or purpose, Dr Nisreen advised parents to also be mindful of when they choose to connect with their children.
“Don’t reach out to children when they are busy … 10 minutes to bed time, lunch time or dinner time … when they have nothing else to do is the best time to reach out to them,” she said.
4. Listen before advising
If your child comes back home and tells you that they felt bullied at school, Dr Nisreen advised parents to resist the urge to dish out advice too quickly.
“As soon as we hear this from our children, we start giving advice – ‘go to the teacher’, ‘try to make new friends’, ‘ignore them’. This puts the child in a lower place, and where the parent knows more. This makes the child feel guilty, weak or unintelligent. The other option that I always recommend to my clients is to try and talk to your child in a way that you are equal,” she said.
5. Reflect and empathise … consistently
An effective approach to build a secure attachment is to empathise and do it consistently.
For example, in the case of when your child feels alone or bullied, Dr Nisreen recommended using phrases that express empathy, not sympathy, and be present for the child when he or she needs you.
“On the first day, perhaps just tell them ‘It’s really hard to not have friends’. The next day, follow it up with something along the lines of ‘I understand, lonelines is not easy’. On the third day, tell them ‘When I was your age, I had the same problem’. So, now, the child is busy with what? His problem. Not busy with trying to impress you,” she added.
