Parenting education for increasing connection and attachment
What Does It Really Mean to Show Up for Your Child: Understanding Attachment Styles in Parenting
The majority of parents have an inherent understanding of the importance of showing up for their child, but what exactly does that look like? And why is it so important? These are the main questions explored in Dan Siegel and Tina Bryson’s book The Power of Showing Up, which we’ll be discussing over the next ten weeks. Their answer to these questions, backed by science, is essentially to be consistently present in your child’s life so that you can help them develop a secure attachment, which they break down into “The Four S’s”- making your child feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure. This article will provide you with an introduction and overview of what secure attachment is, why helping your child to develop it is important, and action items that you can implement in order to do so.
So, what does it mean to help your child develop a secure attachment style? You may have heard phrases like secure, anxious, or avoidant attachment before, as attachment has recently become a popular topic on social media. Online, people tend to discuss attachment styles in the context of dating and romantic relationships, but they actually get their start in childhood. A person’s attachment style is their way of relating to others in relationships. So, if you know someone, or have been someone, who is more distant in relationships, or maybe slightly obsessive, or just plain confusing and contradictory, these are all patterns that can be tied back to that person’s attachment style.
A secure attachment is characterized by being able to trust others and have others rely on you, having a positive self-image, being comfortable with being emotionally close to others, and being able to handle conflict effectively and express emotions in a healthy way. Research has found that kids who are securely attached are more likely to develop benefits such as higher self-esteem, greater academic success, better relationship with parents, more empathy, and healthier romantic relationships in adulthood.
The other three attachment styles (called insecure) are avoidant, anxious, and disorganized. Those who are avoidantly attached are people whose parents consistently ignored their emotional needs in childhood, so they learned not to express those needs because it was a waste of energy or may have even made things worse. As adults, these individuals can struggle to be emotionally close to others because they never learned that relationships can be a safe space to meet emotional needs. Individuals with an anxious attachment had parents who were inconsistent in meeting their emotional needs, sometimes showing up and sometimes not, so they were never able to predict if their parent was going to be there for them. This can lead to being hypervigilant or obsessive in relationships, as these individuals learned that they need to monitor closely the emotional states of others to try and predict if their needs would be met or not. Finally, children who develop disorganized attachment are those whose parents were very frightening to them- either because of abuse, intense emotional dysregulation, or unpredictable behavior. As adults, those with disorganized attachment have no clear pattern of how to behave in a relationship. They often struggle greatly with emotional regulation and with feeling safe in the world. Research has found that 2/3 of children display secure attachment, while 1/3 display one of the insecure styles.
When reading through the previous descriptions, you likely resonated with one over the others. Maybe you see yourself in one of the insecure attachments, and are worrying now about what this means for you as a parent. The good news is, your attachment style can change and can become what is called earned secure attachment. How do you do this? Dan and Tina’s first piece of advice is to make sense of your own life story. They encourage parents to “reflect on and acknowledge both positive and negative aspects of your family experiences and how you feel about them” in order to recognize how these early experiences impacted your own brain and the ways you view and approach relationships.
An example of this is a parent who looks back on their experience being raised by a mother who was a perfectionist and put an incredible amount of pressure on them. This parent realized that because they are so worried about putting that same pressure on their child, they sometimes end up being overly lenient instead. You don’t want to dismiss your past, but you don’t want to become lost in it either. Rather, the goal is to make sense of your experiences so you can be aware of how they may be impacting you, and the way you parent, in the present. Developing this awareness is the first step in being able to show up for your child.
Below, you’ll find links to further reading on attachment and a quiz that can help determine which style you fit into. Take some time to start making sense of your own story, and keep in mind, making sense of your past isn’t just for your child- it’s also a gift to yourself that can help you to be more present in all of your relationships. It may help to journal or talk to a loved one or a professional, as revisiting the past isn’t always easy. Next week, we’ll start looking at Dan and Tina’s “Four S’s” of showing up for your child, starting with the first S- making your child feel safe.
Links
· Reflecting on Your Own Childhood: https://www.zerotothree.org/resource/the-past-is-present-the-impact-of-your-childhood-experiences-on-how-you-parent-today/
· Attachment Styles: https://www.verywellmind.com/attachment-styles-2795344
· Attachment Quiz: https://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl