attachment

• Continued contact for absent parents


  Importance of children having continued contact with absent parents, e.g. in case of family breakdown
• Contact between absent parent and child breaks down


  Children are reluctant to spend time with the absent parent because of detachment
• Mary Ainsworth


  Worked with John Bowlby and developed his work further
• Ainsworth's focus


  • Quality of the attachment to the mother, how sensitive mothers were to their babies and toddlers' needs
• Strange Situation experiment


  1. Part 1: Child and mother in a room, mother asked not to participate as child explores. Stranger enters, talks to parent, then leaves. Parent returns, stranger leaves.

  2. Part 2: Parent leaves, child alone. Stranger comes in, engages with child. Parent returns, stranger leaves.
• Aspects Ainsworth looked at


  • Reaction of child when parent left and returned, how much child explored and interacted with stranger
• Attachment styles identified


  • Secure attachment
  • Insecure avoidant attachment
  • Insecure ambivalent/resistant attachment
  • Disorganised-disoriented attachment
• Secure attachment


  Babies and toddlers with sensitive parents, able to explore with parent as safe base, distressed when parent leaves, pleased when parent returns
• Insecure avoidant attachment


  Babies and toddlers who ignore parent and do not react when parent leaves, do not explore much, similar reactions to parent and stranger
• Insecure ambivalent/resistant attachment


  Babies and toddlers who are clingy to parent, intensely fearful of stranger, hard to comfort and settle when parent returns
• Disorganised-disoriented attachment


  Babies and toddlers who show a range of emotions including fear and freezing, some want to be close to parent, others do not