To the Point - Degrees of attachment
Julian Grenier, early years adviser to Tower Hamlets Council, London
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Whenever there is a discussion about children's emotional wellbeing, the desire that all children should have a 'secure attachment' with their parents and key people is usually stated. This desire is well-meant; it is also misguided.
It is wrong in principle for early years practitioners to start defining the types of relationships that parents should have with their children. If we say we want one style of attachment relationship, then we overstep the line between being professionally responsible and intruding into private family life. And trying to categorise children's attachment, without a training in psychotherapy and attachment theory, would get us out of our depth.
The desire for every child to have a 'secure attachment' does not make sense. Attachment theorists have consistently found that infants can be grouped into a number of different categories of attachment. Wanting all children to have a secure attachment is rather like wanting all adults to be six feet tall - we can wish it all we like, but it is not going to happen. It is inevitable that some infants will not have a secure attachment; and those categorised as having avoidant and resistant types of attachment are no more likely to have emotional or behavioural problems later in their childhood.
Anyone who has been a key person knows that some children come into nursery, avoid any type of hello or welcome and want to get involved straight away in an activity. They do not need to be stopped and made to behave differently; they need to be supported and their key people have to find ways of building a relationship alongside them as they play.
Parents with grouchy babies need to be encouraged to hang on in there and carry on being warm and caring, not feel that everything is going wrong because their relationship does not look like a secure attachment.
But we should look out for children whose response to parting from or being reunited with their parents is unpredictable, who show fear or seem to 'freeze'. They are often in great need of help; and if it is not forthcoming, they are likely to experience continuing difficulties in emotional and behavioural development.
