Speaker 1: 0:00

Do you ever worry about whether or not you have a good relationship with your child, whether they're attached to you properly, whether they're secure with you?

Speaker 1: 0:08

So you're not alone? That's a really common concern that parents have, and it's hard to try to figure that out because you're biased. Obviously you want to think that you have a great attachment with your child, but maybe that's not the case. There's no easy questionnaire that you can take online that just tells you if you're attached with your child, because attachment is a relationship. It's not just one-sided, it's not just your perception of how the relationship is. So how do you know? And this is something that's really important to you you want to be securely, properly attached to your child. So how do you figure it out.

Speaker 1: 0:41

There is a test that we can observe that was developed by Mary Ainsworth, who was a student of John Bowlby, the person who first came up with the concept of the attachment theory. This test is known as the strange situation, and it's not one that you can administer yourself. But what we can do is we can look at some videos of the strange situation being applied to real kids and parents and real situations and you can get a sense of if you recognize yourself and your child in these experiments. The strange situation test was developed because it is so hard to figure out if a child is really well attached with their parent. It's not something that you can just take a test and see. As we've said, it is millions of interactions. It's all of those little interactions that you have with your child and it's difficult to test because you want to try to figure out what your relationship is with your child in a way that's real and that's the purpose of this test. Now, the test is set up like this A parent and a child and in the videos that I have available to me online, mother and child go into an office.

Speaker 1: 1:44

It's set up kind of fun, kind of like a doctor's office, but with lots of toys. Importantly, it's an environment that's strange to the child. They can't necessarily feel comfortable already in that environment, because then you have this causal situation. You don't know if the child is comfortable just because they're familiar with the environment. So you couldn't do it, for example, in their own home, because then you have this alternate causation. So you have this environment that's like an office, but it's set up with toys and fun things. So this is how it works and it takes about 20 minutes for this procedure.

Speaker 1: 2:16

The caregiver, the researcher and the child come into the room. The mother and the child get acclimated to the environment while the experimenter is giving the mother the instructions. After a couple minutes, the experimenter leaves and the mother and the child have the opportunity to spend a few more minutes playing, being together in this new environment. After that time, the experimenter comes back in and sits down, doesn't interact with the child initially and sits down. Doesn't interact with the child initially. After a couple minutes, the experimenter attempts to interact with the child and there may not be much interaction going on, and then the mother slips out when she's given a cue. Now, typically, the child will recognize that the mother is gone and hopefully have some sort of reaction Shortly after a couple of minutes and it gets cut short. If the child is in particular distress, the mother will return. The mother returns and attempts to comfort the child. When the mother returns, now it's time for the experimenter to leave. After a few minutes, the mother leaves and the child is now left completely alone and hopefully has another reaction, and then the experimenter comes in. The experimenter comes in and tries to comfort the child. Then, after a couple of minutes, the mother comes back in, the experimenter leaves and the mother again sues the child, after which time the experiment is done. Now this is called the strange situation, because the room is strange to the child and this experimenter is a stranger to the child, and you're testing how this child reacts, not just to the room, not just to the mother, not just to the stranger, but to all of it. And it's not just about the child getting upset, potentially, when the mother leaves, it's also how quickly can that relationship be repaired? How quickly can the parent comfort the child? All of that is taken into consideration and it's scored by the researchers who came up with some pretty interesting results. So, to help you understand what you're seeing, we're first going to walk through the different types of attachment.

Speaker 1: 4:20

If we're talking about a secure attachment, here are some of the characteristics the child will use the caregiver as a safe base to go out and explore. The child will show distress when their caregiver leaves and typically the child is pleased and seeks comfort when the caregiver returns. This is what you're shooting for. This is what you want in a baby to have a safe place to go out and explore the world. Now if you don't have a secure attachment, you have an insecure attachment.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Here you can have anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment styles. First we'll talk about the anxious style. A child with an anxious style is often clingy and overly dependent on their caregiver. They're less likely to explore their environment, preferring to stay close to their caregiver out of a fear of abandonment. And then, when the caregiver returns, they'll find that the child is difficult to soothe. They'll remain upset, maybe arching their back, seeming a little bit frustrated.

Speaker 1: 5:25

The next style is avoidant. A child who is avoidant will seem emotionally distant and independent, not really caring so much if their caregiver is there. They're going to show little emotion both on the separation and the reunion of their parent when they come back into the room. Unfortunately, these children are sometimes perceived to be just more mature and actually well-adjusted, because they don't seem to be upset, when really the reality is they have failed to establish the kind of connection with their parent that we would hope they could. The next style is a disorganized attachment. A child with disorganized attachment will have inconsistent behaviors. They may appear to be fearful or even confused in their interactions with their caregiver. So when their caregiver returns, they're not necessarily happy to see them. They're not going to run and seek comfort. They may look confused, they may look afraid. Unfortunately, this type of attachment typically occurs in cases of abuse and neglect. Okay, now let's get into the strange situation.

Speaker 2: 6:32

The researchers are recording how 14-month-old Lisa responds in this attractive but unfamiliar setting. How will she react to a stranger? What will happen when her mother leaves the room and when she returns? A stranger? What will happen when her mother leaves the room and when she returns? It's lisa's behavior when her mother returns, what psychologists call the reunion that they are particularly interested in. Once lisa has settled down to play, a stranger enters the room and sits in the chair reading a magazine. The chair reading a magazine.

Speaker 1: 7:15

After a couple of minutes, the stranger attempts to interact with Lisa. All right now it's time for the mother to leave, and we'll see what happens when it's just the stranger and the child.

Speaker 2: 7:22

Soon after Lisbeth gets a cue to leave the room. The stranger tries to comfort Lisa, but in vain. Lisbeth comes back into the room and the camera records how Lisa reacts. Now the first part of the procedure is over.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Okay, so the child has been calmed down and now it's time for the mothers to leave, having the child being left completely alone, and we'll see what happens.

Speaker 2: 8:08

The stranger leaves them alone together. Come and bugger, Come and bugger Lisa. And soon after Elisabeth goes too, Lisa is on her own. Her distress is plain to see. Her distress is plain to see. Once again, the efforts of the stranger to console Lisa are to no avail. But Lisbeth manages to calm her almost at once, and shortly afterwards the observation ends All right.

Speaker 1: 8:37

so in this situation, what we saw, fortunately, was a secure attachment. This was a child who was able to play and experiment and not be so tight on mom. She noticed when mom was gone and she had a reaction. She was upset by it, but mom was able to quickly come back in and console the child and repair that situation. That's a secure attachment. Now let's take a look at some examples where there's not so secure an attachment and see if you can tell the difference.

Speaker 1: 9:07

This experiment which I watched through a two-way mirror is designed to gauge how secure is the crucial relationship between mother and child, close to the door, following her.

Speaker 3: 9:18

Now we sent the mother right back in. But the point here is not to distress the baby, we're just trying to challenge it. The baby puts her hands to her face in a sad expression, puts her face down. When she picks her up, she keeps her head down, her arms out and then she sits in the chair holding the baby. The baby's still sullen, he's low-keyed. So you would call this insecure. Yes, insecure, he's low-keyed.

Speaker 2: 9:46

So you would call this insecure attachment?

Speaker 3: 9:47

Yes, insecure, he's avoidant, he's not engaging her and the reunion's not effective. And it's important to remember here that the thing that upset him was her absence. Her return should be the solution to his problem. Now, this is another pattern that we see in babies who are not good at using their mother as a secure base at home. This baby is also insecure, but you'll see, we get a look at his play before the separation. The mother's left. When she returns, she picks him up. He can't calm down. She picks him up, he can't calm down. He's still upset. She offers a toy to amuse him or to comfort him or to distract him, and he slaps it away. She offers another he slaps it away. He's angry.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Okay. So what does this all mean in terms of detachment, in terms of parenting? Well, if a child is securely attached, that means that they have experienced proper, responsive, caring, healthy parenting. This kind of relationship shows that the caregiver has routinely been warm and responsive and emotionally available, which is fantastic. What this means is that the child has learned that their caregiver is a secure base from which they can go out and explore, experiment and come back for comfort when needed. When the child is in distress, this caregiver most likely responds in a sensitive way, in a responsive way, which reinforces the child's ability to trust that the caregiver is going to be there and it gives them a sense of emotional security.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Now, if the child's insecure in a way that is anxious, then that indicates that there's a bit of inconsistency in the parenting. Sometimes the parent is intrusive, sometimes the parent is emotionally unavailable. There's no reliability there. When a child who has an anxious attachment is clinging to the caregiver, it's not because that they have this really fantastic relationship. It's because the child doesn't trust in the parent's availability. The child doesn't trust that the parent's always going to be there and they're afraid of abandonment. That clinginess is not a good thing. It's a limitation on the child's ability to have independence and to explore the environment in a safe way, trusting that the secure base is going to be there if they need it. If this kind of parenting continues, the child may grow up to be emotionally anxious. They may have some difficulty regulating themselves and have heightened reactivity in situations. They may be clinging in their adult relationships, similarly afraid of this abandonment that they've experienced as a child. Not that they know that they've been abandoned, but they feel, even at this young age, that they've been abandoned. The caregiver hasn't been there when they needed them.

Speaker 1: 12:26

If the child has an avoidant attachment style, that indicates that the parent may be emotionally distant. They've been unavailable, perhaps they've been dismissive when the child has emotional needs. In their short life, the child has already learned that when they seek help, that help doesn't come. When they seek emotional comfort, that emotional comfort is lacking, so they stop seeking, they stop looking for it, they start soothing themselves and not relying on caregiving. That isn't going to occur. Sometimes it's the case that the caregiver provides all of the daily needs you know the food, the clothing, the housing, all of that stuff but just is emotionally distant. It doesn't mean that they're physically neglectful, but they are emotionally neglectful. Potentially they're not providing this emotional connection that the child needs.

Speaker 1: 13:12

If this kind of parenting continues, the child may grow up to have similar avoidant behavior as an adult. They may have trouble allowing themselves to get into situations with some emotional dependency on another person because they don't trust it. They haven't experienced it, it's not going to be there for them. They think so. They avoid it to avoid being hurt. Now, if the child has a disorganized attachment style, that's not a great sign. This indicates that the caregiver is both a source of comfort and fear for the child. It leaves the child confused, simultaneously wanting to get comfort but also afraid to approach this caregiver who sometimes causes them discomfort, who sometimes causes them pain, who makes them afraid at times. So the child doesn't quite know what to do. This is the most disturbing type of attachment style because it indicates that the child has been in an environment in which caregiving is sometimes harmful, in which their parent can display behavior that is unpredictable, frightening and even harmful to them.

Speaker 1: 14:09

A child who experiences this type of parenting over the long term has the greatest risk of experiencing mental health issues. Those issues can include things like anxiety, depression and even dissociation health issues. Those issues can include things like anxiety, depression and even dissociation. They also very well could have trouble forming adult relationships and even as an adult, having difficulty regulating their emotions. They could be an adult who's in their 30s but have the emotional regulation skills of someone who's 8, 9, or 10 years old. Now, some of this sounds really disheartening, but here's the good news is that children's brains are incredibly plastic. Right Up until they're 25 years old. Their brains are still continually growing At various points through this process. They have incredible sensitivity in just the areas that need to be impacted to avoid having these negative outcomes. So it's not too late.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Even if a child has been through horrible situations, including foster care and different types of abuse, they still have the ability to have learned attachment. They still have the ability to have a caring adult who can show them that emotions can be safe, that their emotional needs can be met. Psychotherapy with a good therapist is a form of learned attachment learning that you can have emotional safety with another person. If they get into a relationship, if they're fortunate enough to be in a relationship with someone who is emotionally safe themselves, who is secure and who knows how to communicate their emotions in a healthy way that also can generate for them a learned attachment, even as an adult.

Speaker 1: 15:40

As parents, we have to be mindful of our own attachment styles. We have to understand what we went through as children, how that impacted our ability to have relationships as adults, because, believe it or not, our attachment styles with other adults that we've learned growing up as children is something that we carry into our parent-child relationship. If you have difficult attachments with adults, you're going to have a difficult attachment with your child. So it's not too late. You just have to recognize that that situation occurs. Look out for the kinds of behaviors that are going to be negative for your child in terms of their emotional development. Get the help that you need and then start today having a better emotional connection to your child, being more emotionally available, being that secure base that your child needs to go out and explore the world but know they can come back to emotional safety. Thank you for listening.