Children's attachments

Abstract

The quality of parental attachments has profound, far-reaching implications. Children's immaturity makes them dependant on these to progress safely towards independence. Attachment develops through parental attunement to infants' needs, establishing their preconceptions of relationships and foundations of verbal and non-verbal communication. In giving meaning to feelings and body signals, attuned parenting builds self-awareness. By regulating stress, it contributes to programming of the stress systems, with life-long implications for adjustment, behaviour and physical and psychological health, including major causes of morbidity and mortality. Suboptimal attachment falls on a spectrum ranging from mildly insecure to profoundly dysfunctional. Quality of attachment is relevant to symptom presentation, illness behaviour and service use, and to optimal paediatric care. It is an important consideration in all safeguarding decisions and their implementation; unsatisfactory childhood attachment frequently underlies intergenerational parenting problems. Enabling children to achieve adequate parental attachment is an overriding concern in working with children in care and in adoptive homes, and is a priority for every child.