Attachment Relationship between Youth

The Second World War caused the separation of parents and their children on a massive scale. Families were torn apart because of the bombardments of civilian targets, the insatiable need for the army to draft new men and the threat from Germany. In London, the psychotherapists Dorothy Hurling ham and Anna Freud-the daughter of the famous Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud-set up the so-called Hampstead Nurseries: several shelters for children between age zero and age ten who had lost their parents because of the war-either temporarily or for good. Burling hum and Freud poignantly describe the sufferings of these young children, who often pined away from grief for the loss of the attachment relationship with their parents, despite the fact that they received high quality care. Take, for example, Dell, an active little girl aged two and a half years. When first brought by her mother, she soon started playing and did not really notice her mother leaving. However, half an hour later Dell suddenly realized what had happened and walked around the house in despair to find her mother. Her bright cheer and activity disappeared and she became a different child. She was not able to connect to one of the professional caregivers and after a couple of weeks she treated her parents as any other visitors. Towards the end of the 1950s result from ethological studies became available that challenged the traditional views. Ethnology is the science of animal and human behavior. Harlow (1958) did historically important experiments with young rhesus monkeys that have been separated from their biological parents at birth. Instead of their real parents the monkeys were provided with ‗surrogate‘ mothers made from wire mesh. Some surrogate mothers were covered with soft furry cloth; others remained somewhat macabre wire skeletons. The young monkeys were fed through a bottle that could be mounted on both ‗mothers.‘ In one of the experiments eight monkeys grew up with two kinds of surrogate mothers. Probably first by smell and then by sight the baby develops preference for one or a few caregivers-the phase of orienting and signaling. During this second phase, the baby adapts to a limited number of caregivers (and vice versa of course) to which attachment behavior is preferentially directed. Attachment behavior such as crying can also be more easily stopped by these specific caregivers. Nevertheless, the preference for the regular caregivers

In phase three it is difficult to delay gratification of the infant‘s need for security and proximity; infants are still too ‗egocentric‘ in the Piagetian sense to be aware of the fact that their caregivers may have other plans, plans that do not necessarily involve them. Children enter the phase of the goal-corrected partnership when they can imagine plans and perceptions in the caregiver and fit their own plans and activities according to these (Marvin et al., 1977). This fourth phase has been less heavily researched, but there is the notion that from about three years of age (much earlier according to Main et al., 1985) children develop a so-called working model, a mental representation of their attachment relationships that influences attachment behaviour in an abstract way. Attachment behaviour has undergone transformation from primitive crying to the verbal communication of relatively complex affective messages. Bowlby (1973) hypothesized that the working model stemming from this phase could influence later attachment relationships (see below). This vignette shows the strength of early attachments. It also illustrates that bonds are bidirectional. Parents are as fearful of separating from their infants as their infants are about being separated from their parents.

A critical part of achieving trust, from Erikson‘s view, is the ability of babies to come to know and bond with caregivers. Forming an emotional bond with others in infancy is called attachment. In his classic work on infants, John Bowlby (1969) described attachment as a bidirectional process in which babies and parents (or other caregivers) make contact with each other in ways that lead to emotional bonds. Baies perform social behaviors-smiling, making eye contact, cooing-that capture adults‘ attention and elicit strong feelings of caring and concern. Caregivers respond to these behaviors with warmth and social contact. Thus, babies and significant adults become attached to one another.

Between 6 and 8 months of age, babies show stranger anxiety, a fear of unfamiliar persons that often results in great upset. The followings story highlights the problems that occur during this period: After 6 months of age, babies begin to show separation anxiety, a fear of being separated from caregivers. They show upset when their parents leave them. Sometimes only a brief departure to another room will trigger distress. Separation anxiety is very familiar to caregivers who work with infants and

Using this technique, Ainsworth discovered that several types of attachment exist. These are summarized in Table 9-1. Babies can be categorized as demonstrating either secure attachment or insecure attachment. Roughly 70% of babies in the United States form secure attachments (Ainsworth et al., 1978; van Ijzendoorn & Krooneberg, 1988). A securely attached baby will play happily with toys during the mother‘s presence in a strange situation. Upon her departure, the baby may cry, but the reunion will be a happy one. The baby may hug or cling to the mother for a time. But will quickly stop crying.

Secure Plays happily within a strange play setting, if a parent is present. May cry when the parent leaves the room, but will greet the parent joyously at their reunion. Insecure/avoidant May or may not cry at a parent‘s departure from a strange play area. Ignores and even moves away from the parent when he or she returns. Insecure/ambivalent May show great upset when a parent leaves a strange play area. Continues to be inconsolable when the parent returns. Will alternate between desperate clinging and angry rejection during the reunion. Attachment, as determined by Ainsworth‘s strange situation paradigm, appears to affect development in later childhood. Securely attached infants tend to be more friendly and competent and to have more positive views of themselves in later childhood (Sroufe, 1985). In contrast, insecure/avoidant babies tend to become more aggressive, more impulsive, and less cooperative (M.F. Erikson, Sroufe, & Egeland, 1985; Turner, 1993). Insecure/ambivalent infants tend to become timid, dependent, and whiny in later childhood (Sroufe, Fox, & Pancake, 1983). They are also more inhibited in their exploration and play with peers (Cassidy & Berlin, 1994). In the elementary years, they are more likely to be identified as having social and emotional problems.

The high rates of insecure/avoidant attachment in German communities could be the result of cultural values and socialization practices as well (Harwood at al., 1995). Norht German mothers are found to engage in independence training in which children at a young age are encouraged to separate and closeness and dependence are discouraged. It is understandable, then, that babies of these cultural groups would be more likely to ignore mothers upon reunion in the strange situation procedure. Caution must be used, then, in relying on separation and reunion behaviors to measure attachments. More culturally sensitive methods of observing infant-caregiver bonds may be needed. Parenting behaviors influence attachment formation. The two examples that follow show contrasting styles in parent interactions. Which style is more likely to support strong emotional bonds?

As a woman in a small village in India works in the garden outside home, her 4-month-old granddaughter sleeps in a basket nearby. The baby awakes and begins to cry. The grandmother scoops the baby up, hugs and comforts her, then straps the baby to a sling across her abdomen. She then returns to her grading, stooping over the vegetable and pulling weeds in a rhythmic motion. The baby falls asleep, cradled securely against her grandmother, gently rocking with her movements.

A mother in a city in Kenya has just acquired a crib for her 5 month-old son. Enthused about what she perceives to be a modern European child care method, she places her sleeping baby in the crib in his room and leaves to ranger and anxiety. No one is in the home to comfort him. Even when the mother returns home, she does not respond to her baby‘ series she wishes to train her baby to stay in the crib while she does her work. Warm, physical contact is a separate dimension of parenting. Nurturing parents spend lots of time in physical contact with their babies, holding them, bouncing them, playing with them, or simply gazing into their eyes. The grandmother in Example 1 manages to provide warm, physical contact while continuing with her work. When she straps her granddaughter close to her body, the baby falls immediately back to sleep. the attachment behaviors valued in their own families may be different from those of families they work with. Great care must be taken not to misinterpret cultural expressions of warmth or responsiveness. A parent may respond to a baby‘s signals with rough-and-tumble play or humor. Warm contact may include being carried in a backspace or being bounced on a knee. Some attachment behaviors may be delivered without a great deal of affection or enthusiasm, but these are effective parenting interactions, nonetheless.

What can be done when insecure attachments begin to from? Can professionals intervene with high-risk groups (e.g., depressed mothers) to enhance infant-parent relationships? As I mentioned, one problem with the idea of attachment intervention is that different cultures have different ways of securing infant bonds. A responding behavior in one culture may not be effective in another. In such cases, efforts to teach specific parenting behaviors may be fruitless. These concerns have been borne out in research. In a program designed to teach high-risk mothers attachment-related interactions, a curriculum of games and activities was implemented-related interactions, a curriculum of games and activities was implements during home visits and classes at a child development center (Spiker, Fergusion, & Brokks-Gunn, 1993). The effects of the intervention were minimal, though positive. However, white parents showed more positive outcomes than African-American parents. It may be that the procedures and parenting techniques being taught were geared primarily to the dominant Euro-American culture.

David, R. Shaffer, Development psychology childhoods & Adolescence, University of Georgia, wads worth and west. Diane, E. Papalia, sally Wendkos olds, Ruth Duskin Feldman, Tata Mcgraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi. Introduction to Early childhood Education 3rd Edition, Eva Essa University of Nevada-Reno, Delmar Publishers. J.C., Aggarwal,: Essentials of Educational Psychology, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. R.N., Sharma, R.K. Sharma- Education Psychology, Atlantic publisher, New Delhi.

(Reader) Matushri Ahilyadevi Teachers‘ Education Institute, Sulakhedi, Indore E-Mail – dr.shivani57@gmail.com