Early Parenting and Parental Attachment: Links with Offspring’s Attachment and Perceptions of Social Support

Abstract

In a multiple-reporter study of parenting and adult attachment, measures of attachment security were obtained from 101 adults, and from a subsample of their mothers (n=72) and fathers (n=62). In addition, both parents and offspring reported on behaviours that had occurred in the parent-child relationship, and offspring completed a measure of perceived social support from family and friends. Parents’ and offspring’s reports of parenting behaviours showed considerable agreement, but overall, parents were more positive in their ratings of these behaviours. Generational differences in attachment security were also observed, and parents’ and offspring’s attachment characteristics were related in theoretically meaningful ways. Data from offspring supported an integrative theoretical model, which proposed that the association between parenting and perceptions of social support would be mediated by attachment security. The results are discussed in terms of theories of parenting and attachment, including the intergenerational transmission of attachment.