Infant Attachment, Parenting Style, and Temperament
Attachment and parenting style
Early infant attachment plays a crucial role in enhancing the emotional wellbeing of a child. It ensures the proper development of a child and nurtures the ability to develop intimate relationships with others in later stages of life. It also has an impact on the capabilities of parents in caring and responding to the child. Infant attachment has lasting outcomes that can affect several generations of a family. The care a child receives from a mother is the initial encounter with real life and is of great significance in the child’s growth.
The attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby towards 1960. He described attachment as a lasting sentimental relationship, portrayed by an impulse to uphold proximity to a particular individual, especially in trying circumstances. The theory asserts that an infant’s initial relationship is a love relationship that has extensive long term effects on the development of the child later in life. Being near the figure of attachment offers child protection and security psychologically. Attachments should enable a child to develop dependable relationships and ask for assistance when in need. The availability and responsiveness of a caregiver to the requirements of an infant is crucial in the development of secure attachments and self-esteem of the child (Yoo & Rae, 2012).
“Representational models” create the platform for interactions with others and have profound impacts on the formation of personality, behavior organization, and the creation of intimate relationships. These models are founded on the experiences a child has in initial relationships established. Developmental changes or variations in experience can cause differences in attachment behavior as well as the representational models. Alterations in the behavior of parents can also lead to these variations. Bowlby’s theory classifies attachments as either secure or anxious.
The major categories of attachment are secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized. Each category has particular behavioural traits. Securely attached children utilize the figure of attachment to examine the world safely and with minimal anger. Children with avoidant attachments have anxiety regarding the openness of the attachment figure and generate protective mechanisms to handle it. Infants with ambivalent attachments exhibit anxiety and observable mixed feelings regarding the figure of attachment ( Brumariu et al., 2016). Those with disorganized attachments lack regular mechanisms of handling incidents of detachment and reunion with attachment figures.
The awareness of a mother during a response to the requirements of a child is a key determinant of the attachment patterns of the infant. Secure infant attachment is mostly identified with useful maternal aspects such as flexibility. Disruptions in the personalities of caregivers are likely to cause ambivalent attachments in children. Interactions between the mother and infant, as well as culture, also influence the development of anxious attachments. The irritability of the child and inadequate support for the mother is also likely to lead to the formation of anxious attachments.
Infants with secure attachments have a variety of benefits over their counterparts later in life. They are enthusiastic about activities, cooperative, and tend to be more interactive. Children with anxious attachments are less likely to seek support and tend to have difficulties acknowledging usual imperfections (Kim et al., 2014). They also lack enthusiasm and are likely to exhibit feelings of frustration. They have difficulties establishing lasting relationships, unlike those with secure attachments. Fear and jealousy are common in relationships developed by anxious infants in later years of life. Attachment patterns also have an impact on the approach children have in employment. Those with secure attachments are more likely to be effective and confident in the job setting. Intervention programs can be adopted for families at high risk of developing anxious attachments.
Temperament
Temperament has an impact on the behavior and the interactions a child has with others. It is important to learn the temperament of a child because it enables interested parties such as parents to find out how infants react and view the world. It can also help establish the strengths and weaknesses of the child, as well as the help they need to nurture secure relationships.
Various traits are used to describe the temperament of a child. These traits are based on the degree of a child’s involvement in activities, flexibility to regular patterns, response to new circumstances, mood, the ferocity of reactions, awareness to ongoing activities, adaptability to change, and persistence and ease of distraction during tasks (Allard & Hunter). Children are categorized into three temperament types based on these attributes. Easy children have common sleeping and eating patterns, not easily frustrated, and exhibit happiness mostly. Active children have random sleeping patterns and portray extreme reactions. Cautious children are not very active, fussy, but may develop positivity after sufficient exposure to new circumstances or individuals.
The intensity of temperamental traits varies across different children. Children may have a common temperament type but exhibit quite diverse reactions in the same circumstances or later stages of growth. The cultural values and parenting styles practiced by a family can have an impact on the degree of temperamental traits. However, the temperament type of child is constant. Environmental interactions can also affect the temperament of a child. These interactions can alter the intensity of the temperamental l traits exhibited by a child.
Temperament is of great significance because it enables caregivers to properly comprehend individual distinctions among children. This enables them to understand how to assist children to communicate their feelings, wants, and choices in an acceptable manner(Margolis et al., 2018). It also enables parents and the caregivers to quit apportioning themselves or the infant for responses that are normal for the child. It also enables the parents and caregivers to get used to expecting certain actions from the child and avert disappointing themselves or the child by using inappropriate approaches to manage the temperament.
Developing a “Goodness of Fit” enhances appropriate socioemotional development. As a caregiver or parent, reflecting and identifying your temperament traits will enable you to consider the perspective of the infant and create an appropriate fit for each child. Developing relationships with diverse families can also enhance comprehension of the temperament of different children. Caregivers should also accord appropriate respect to the various temperament types of children and ensure that practices offered to promote the development of all children.
Attachment, temperament and parenting style have lasting effects on the social and emotional development of children. They play a key role in determining the nature of relationships that a child will develop in later years of life, as well as determining his personality and character. Parents and caregivers should take appropriate measures to ensure that the child develops secure attachments and know to handle the different temperamental traits children exhibit.
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References
Allard, L. T., & Hunter, A. Understanding Temperament in Infants and Toddlers. Retrieved from http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/wwb/wwb23.html#:~:text=It is her personal“style,relate tothe world around them.
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Yoo Rha Hong, & Jae Sun Park. (January 01, 2012). Impact of attachment, temperament and parenting on human development. Korean Journal of Pediatrics, 55, 12, 449-454.
Kim, B., Stifter, C., Philbrook, L., & Teti, D. (2014). Infant emotion regulation: Relations to bedtime emotional availability, attachment security, and temperament. Infant Behavior and Development, 37(4), 480-490.
Margolis, A., Lee, S., & Beebe, B. (2018). 243. Profiling Infants’ Communicative Behavior: Identifying Behavioral Markers of Infant Difficult Temperament and Insecure Attachment. Biological Psychiatry, 83(9), S98.
Brumariu, L., Bureau, J., Nemoda, Z., Sasvari-Szekely, M., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2016). Attachment and temperament revisited: Infant distress, attachment disorganisation and the serotonin transporter polymorphism. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 34(1), 77-89.
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