The benefits of attachment parenting for infants and children: A behavioral developmental view.

Abstract

Parents of infants and young children face many challenges when dealing with negative emotions such as crying, distress, fear and anger. If children experience such emotions chronically, and these are not mitigated by parents, evidence suggests that the stress can result in irreversible brain damage. These changes can increase the likelihood of serious problems in children’s development. This paper shows that the use of Attachment Parenting practices both with infants and with older children can greatly reduce the child’s stress and by so doing may produce both physical and psychological benefits. The major benefits occur as the result of the mitigation of potentially overwhelming negative emotional states. With infants, the specific Attach ment Parenting practices include co-sleeping, breast feeding on demand, extensive carrying and holding of infants, and rapid response to infant crying. These have been shown to be associated with less crying and other expressions of distress. The effectiveness of these stress-reducing behaviors is probably due to the high degree of responsiveness to infant signals. Parents who bottle feed instead of breast feed, for example, or those who have their infants sleep nearby but not necessarily in the same bed can also practice highly responsive parenting. For older infants and children, Attachment Parenting consists of continuing to be highly responsive to the child, which especially includes behaviors that help children better regulate emotional states such as distress, fear and anger. The benefits that are discussed include less exposure to stress, which effects brain development and later reactions to stress. This has been shown to reduce mental health problems in later development. Another important psychological benefit is secure attachment, which is the tendency of the child to seek contact with a parent when distressed and to be effectively consoled by that contact. The result of more effective emotion regulation and secure attachment during infancy and childhood is that children engage more effectively with essential developmental tasks, including peer relationships and schooling.