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Attachment & Bonding

�Although these terms are used somewhat interchangeably in our work, below are the definitions we will use.��Attachment: Care-seeking behavior. An instinct, throughout life, to seek proximity to a specific person who will comfort, protect and/or help organize one’s feelings.

Bonding: Care-giving behavior. An instinct to monitor a specific person and to comfort, protect and/or organize that person’s feelings when necessary.
�In summary, children attach. Parents/care-givers bond.

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Attachment – what it looks like

Negative attachment cycle

Attachment video – “Strange Situation”

Attachment – stages of development

Stage	Name	Age of child	Description
Stage 1	Asocial or Pre-attachment	Birth – 1.5 mos	Response to both social and nonsocial stimuli
Stage 2	Indiscriminate attachment or Attachment-in-the-making	1.6 – 6 mos	Strong preference to human social stimuli, but not to any particular person
Stage 3	Unique or Clear-cut attachment	7 – 18 mos	Separation anxiety for one particular person and growing anxiety for others
Stage 4	Multiple attachment or Reciprocal relationships	18+ mos	Separation anxiety for more than one person but one primary attachment figure

Based on work of Schaffer & Emerson, 1964

Critical stage for forming first attachment!

Types of attachment

Type	All Kids	Child behaviors	Caregiver Behaviors	Child’s Thoughts
Secure	~60%	Feel confident that the attachment figure will be available to meet their needs. Use the attachment figure as a safe base to explore the environment	Quick, sensitive and consistent	Believes and trusts needs will be met
Insecure:�Avoidant	~10-15%	Not distressed when caregiver leaves, does not seek out comfort Prefers environment to caregiver Minimal expression of need	Distant, disengaged	Needs won’t be met, so finds alternatives (strangers or environment)
Insecure:�Resistant/�Ambivalent	~10-15%	Clingy yet inconsolable Keeps an inconsistent caregiver available through heightened displays of emotionality and dependence	Inconsistent. Sometimes sensitive, sometimes neglectful	“I’m mad at you for leaving, never, ever do it again!” “Pull/Push”
Disorganized�(high degree of future psychopathy)	~10-15%	Frightened or traumatized by caregiver Angry, depressed; completely passive, non-responsive	Extreme and erratic Frightened and frightening	Flight, fight or freeze – usually all at once.

Attachment stability

�68-75% correspondence between infant and adult attachment classification (Hazan & Shaver, 1987).

Childhood		Adulthood
Secure		Secure
Distressed when mom leaves, comforted by her return		Comfortable in relationships, able to seek support
Avoidant		Avoidant
Not distressed when mom leaves, does not seek out comfort		High autonomy, emotionally disconnected
Resistant		Preoccupied
Upset at departure but inconsolable		Fears rejection, clingy but inconsolable

Attachment Difficulties

What can advocates do?

��And remember – “attachment” is a transferable skill once learned. At this phase, it’s more important that the child has formed a successful attachment more so than whom it is with.

Final Conclusions

Absence of attachment to caregivers is extremely rare and typically observed only among children who have had insufficient time to develop attachment relationships (e.g. due to recent placement in a new caregiving arrangement, like foster care) or among the very few children who have not had sufficient opportunities to identify any caregiver as familiar (e.g. due to institutional rearing.)�
Convergent evidence suggests that each attachment relationship is important, with children gaining benefits from having more than one safe haven.
��Measures to assess attachment quality, when used by trained and certified coders in validated settings, are impressive tools for research on the group-level. Not at the individual child level.

Final Conclusions

“There is also likely to be no group of studies that can ever satisfy all of the particulars of an individual custody or child protection dispute. That is, at some point, experts and judges may have to move from the general to the particular, and sometimes even beyond extant data.” (Use of attachment theory should be in conjunction with other theories. Not by itself.)
�One data point (or even a number over a brief period of time) is not enough to evaluate attachment at the individual child level.�
Continuity of familiar "good enough" care is important in child development; every effort should made in child welfare to reduce unnecessary moves and abrupt moves from one home to another for whatever reason. �
Placement instability harms children's development. Child welfare agencies that cannot stabilize a child in a foster placement may be doing more harm than good to a child's development.