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The significance of attachment on children’s development
The significance of attachment on children’s development
Implication of attachment theory on child development
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Q2. ‘There is no such thing as an infant….whenever one finds an infant, one finds maternal care’ (Winnicott,1960,p.39). Drawing on both your reading and brief illustrations from infant observation, discuss the significance of the early mother-infant relationship in supporting the infant’s emotional development. 1000 words Add mirroring, false self... How does the early infant relationship support the infant’s emotional development? Winnicott's statement draws our attention to the intimate connection that exists between an infant and their mother. By infant he is referring to the very young child who depends on maternal care that is based on empathy which he names ‘primary maternal preoccupation’. In this time infants cannot begin to be, to exist, except under certain conditions. The infant is in a state of absolute dependence. It is this dependence that is key to Winnicott's perception of mother-infant interactions. With the mothers careful attention to the babies needs, she helps the baby to exist, and develop as a person in their own right. “This is a period of ego development, and integration is the main feature of such a development. The ID forces clamour for attention. At first they are external to the infant. In health the ID becomes gathered into the service of the ego, and the ego masters the ID, so that ID satisfactions become ego-strengtheners”. (Winnicott p40) So for example, the baby cries as a result of it’s bodily need for hunger, and the mother responds to the babies need, prioritising it above other demands. She stops speaking on the phone, or any other activity in order to feed her baby. Winnicott states that she is drawn to do this through an identification with her babies needs, through the experience ... ... middle of paper ... ...ry around mother infant care. Idealisation of mothers is linked with the denigration of mothers and predisposes mothers to fail. Pathologising maternal ambivalence and the subjective experience of mothers leads to a demonising of mothers as the cause of all ills in the child. Freud for example proposed that a mother's feelings, and in particular towards her son fosters the 'most perfect, the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships' (1933, p. 133). Perhaps a wider appreciation of the mother-infant dyad would provoke a greater understanding of what an infant encounters as part of a normal infancy. It also provokes us to ask how the non-biological mother equipped to mother her child? What of the significance of other relationships the infant encounters with the father and siblings for example? http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/documents/raphael-leff.pdf
According to Klaus and Kennell, there are specific events, including skin-to-skin contact between mother and infant that must occur directly following the birth of a primate infant. This maximizes the chances of survival for the newborn not only because their mother is a source of food, but also because they will learn the culture they need to be successful in their environment. In the study, Klaus and Kennell test how much time a baby spends crying when they are separated from their mother. They concluded the increased time in babies that were separated was due to the anxiety that separation caused. The difficulty in this is that the cause of the baby’s distress is subjective. Also the notion of critical period proposed that the bonds and lessons taught during that time could not be developed later.
The love of the mother to the daughter, during pregnancy, reinforces the sense of herself. The fusion with the daughter helps the mother develop a sense of her own supremacy since “an experience that, without the child, she would only rarely encounter: love for an other”. Besides, the love of the mother mirrors an interconnectedness with the social sphere. Social marginalization is eclipsed as the “maternal love affects the dynamic between the self as mother and society insofar as it creates connections and opportunities for engagement where none existed” (qtd. in Lemma 96). The strong bond and the reciprocity of the mother-daughter relationship foster a sense of creativity.
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) challenged some of Bowlby’s claims which believed that babies have some biological need to attach to their mothers, or at least to a permanent carer. Schaffer and Emerson carried out an ethological study in Scotland which consisted of 60 babies from a working-class sector of Glasgow during the first eighteen months of their lives. They interviewed the mothers every 4 weeks and asked them several questions related to their child’s reaction when faced with a separation distress, e.g. who they smile at, who they respond to, who affects the child most when they leave and so on. Schaffer and Emerson used the results of their interviews to measure separation anxiety. They also observed how the children responded to the presence of the researchers noting how close they could get to the child before causing sings of distress (when they begin to look for their mothers, whimpering). They used these findings to measure stranger anxiety. The research showed as well that many of the children were actually attached to several people. According to Schaffer and Emerson this occurs when there is more than one person in the child’s life who took an interest in them and the infants became attached to them.
The article Maternal Attachment Representations, Maternal Sensitivity, and the Infant-Mother Attachment Relationship (1998) is based on the link between a parent’s portrayal of attachment and the relationship between the parent and child. One of the elements that is central to attachment theory is a parent’s cognitive representation of a relationship is representative of the pattern of interactions expected with developing a relationship with his/her own child. The assumption was justified van IJzendoorn reviewed six- hundred sixty-one dyads, and the results yielded positively to support that there are associations between security and autonomy. Results further yielded the association between a parent’s attachment delineation and the relationship
In this essay I will talk about the origins of Attachment Theory John Bowlby (1958, 1960) and a discussion of the ‘Strange Situation’ (Ainsworth et al., 1978). I will consider the ethics of the study, the social- cultural perspectives on the work and I will analyse how it has influenced policy decisions and practice within the Early Years Education Sector. John Bowlby formulated the basic tenets of Attachment theory. The background to his theory is based on his work he had undertaken after he graduated from University in 1928 he went on to volunteer in a school for maladjusted children, later starting a career as a child psychiatrist (Senn, 1977). The basis of his attachment theory was that the infant or child suffered if he did not have “…a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” (Bowlby, 1951, p. 13). In this period - post war Britain, there had been a shift in women’s roles before they had taken on many male jobs due to absence of men because of the war. However after the war, nurseries were closed and women were back at home as primary carers. This support Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation and other physiological ideas which supported that children would be negatively affected without the full time presence of the mother.
We are all composed of basic traits and qualities, but it is the unique and enduring combination of these traits that make up our personality (Feldman & Feinman, 1947). The formation of our personality is heavily influenced by the relationship with our mother during our early childhood. To avoid misinterpretation, Bowlby (as cited in Hinde 1991) has clarified the term “mother” to be a primary caregiver who the infant becomes attached to. John Bowlby’s theory of attachment explains how the relationship or, attachment dynamic, has an effect on the way we interact with and understand the world as infants. This is known as the internal working model (IWM) and it includes how the infant understands the behavioural expectations of the world, their mother and themselves (Schore, 2000). An infant’s IWM are observed and categorised into three attachment styles known as secure, avoidant and ambivalent. This is done through Ainsworth 's strange situation procedure (SSP) (Behrens, Parker & Haltigan, 2011). As we grow older, and start to discover a sense of individuality, the maternal influences on
Infant attachment is the first relationship that occurs between infants and their mothers or other primary caregivers (Craig & Dunn, 2010). The mother-infant attachment begins at birth and is considered by a group of...
The attachment theory, presented by Mary Ainsworth in 1969 and emerged by John Bowlby suggests that the human infant has a need for a relationship with an adult caregiver, and without a subsequent, development can be negatively impacted (Hammonds 2012). Ainsworth proposes that the type of relationship and “attachment” an infant has with the caregiver, can impact the social development of the infant. As stated by Hammonds (2012), attachment between a mother and a child can have a great impact on the child 's future mental
The research, lead by Sara Waters, was published in Psychological Science in January, 2014. Initially, the researchers predicted that babies would react to the mother’s response to a situation (particularly with negative stressors), reflect their mother’s response through certain behavioral responses, and ultimately achieve a greater connection with the mother that
The “strange situation” is a laboratory assessment used to measure infants’ attachment to their mothers through observation, by providing a series’ of experiences of introductions to a stranger, separations from mother and then the reunion of the two. The “strange situation” measures the infants’ attachment in being securely to insecurely attached with the mother. The scene of the experiment is set up in a small room with mother, child and stranger, they will then follow a prescribed order of the series listed above. At first it’s only mother and child, and then the stranger joins the room. The mother tends to the child briefly and then leaves the room, leaving the child with the stranger. The child then expresses distress to a certain extent – depending on the degree of secure attachment to the mother – upon the mother’s departure and cries in calling the mother back. The mother returns and stranger leaves. The next step is then that the mother leaves the child completely alone, and when child then cries in a call for them to come back, the stranger will return instead of the mother, this is an important part of the experiment in order to determine the child’s attachment. It gets determined whether or not the child will return to a calm state of mind with the calming of the stranger. The mother will finally return to the child again and stranger will leave as the experiment and observation
Initially it was thought infants become attached to their mother due to her feeding them most. Infant’s get pleasure from being fed and associate this with the mother which results in an attachment being formed. This theory
James Bowlby came up with attachment theory as an explanation of the mother child bond that had been the craze in the 1980’s. He believed that a child was normal and well adjusted if she was assured of her ‘caretakers’ support in her emotional state. If so then the child would have the ‘secure base’ needed to branch out and develop securely. (Ainsworth et al, 1978). His theory mainly stated that there is a critical period of time in which a child must bond with a caretaker in order to form stable bonds that would in turn shape their future development. He was however unable to prove such an effect in his lifetime Soon after his troy fell out of fashion, till the late 1970s’ when the work of Mary Ainsworth was published.
Child development and growth observation can be quite fascinating considering the uniqueness of each child. As children grow, they normally develop and acquire new skills whether complex or not. The abilities experienced by each child progresses differently that is it depends on the nurturing given by the parent or guardian and on the characteristics that they inherit. Proper development and growth of the child occurs when basic needs are provided by the reliable adult guardians, including such things as love, food, encouragement, shelter and warmth. The essay evaluates child development and growth through observation conducted by myself on my nephew. The essay will include physical development, general health, emotional development,
There is no voice more comforting than Mama’s. In the womb we are suspended in safe warmth, hearing every noise that Mama makes. And we don’t just hear her voice. We feel its vibrations, its muffled hum, through our ears and our entire forming bodies. It’s no wonder that that is often the only voice that can comfort us in the distress of our new little lives. Yet, what of the mother who cannot speak? Can she still comfort her baby? Yes, because it is much more than vocal chords that connect a baby with its birth mother. After all, Baby eats all that Mama eats, breathes Mama’s air, knows Mama’s way of moving and laughing…Baby feels every surge of adrenaline that Mama feels. Bonds don’t get more intimate than that. Even after Baby is born, this bond is strengthened through long bouts of staring into each other’s eyes, through feeling the lulling rhythm of Mama’s breathing while sleeping against her chest, through time spent together saturated in touch and play. This phenomenon of intimacy is so powerful that it surpasses any blindness or handicap Mama could possibly have.
Ramona T. Mercer is the theorist credited for developing the theory of Maternal Role Attainment, which is also known as the theory of Becoming a Mother. “Maternal role attainment is an interactional and developmental process occurring over time in which a mother becomes attached to her infant, acquires competence in the caretaking tasks involved in the role, and expresses pleasure and gratification in the role (Tomey & Alligood, 2006, p. 608). Mercer’s career has been primarily focused in pediatrics, obstetrics, and maternal-child nursing. Mercer’s greatest accolades have been based on her extensive research on the topic of maternal role and development (Tomey & Alligood, 2006, p. 605).