Adult Attachment Type And Family Services
At WJS, our work with families revolves around healthy child development which starts with the attachment relationship between child or youth and the parents. Attachment formation is the foundation for the child of their relationship capacity, self-regulation and emotional/social development. Attachments are classified into secure, insecure ambivalent (inconsistent approach and will push parents away) or insecure avoidant (more distant, isolating approach). A majority of children have secure attachments while 10 to 15% of children are ambivalent and 10 to 15% avoidant. What we often forget is that adults have attachment styles as well.
Adult attachment type is most often measured using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) that asks a person a series of questions about their childhood, their parents, and their relationship with them. Research has shown that children with secure attachments grow up to be adults with a secure adult attachment. Similarly, the other attachment types in children are found in adults however avoidant are approximated equivalent to “dismissing”. The “entangled” adult type approximates the ambivalent attachment. Dr. Stan Tatkin, a couples therapist in Los Angeles classifies adults as Anchors (Two are better than one); Waves (If you only loved me like I love you); and Islands (I want you in the house, just not in my room).
We under-utilize adult attachment styles with family intervention even though we know that children and youth’s behavior arises from the ecology of their family and friends relationships. The importance of working with an adult’s attachment style in family intervention work is that it fits well with the research from a large body of research on ecological child development. For instance, Dr. Jack P. Schonkoff, of the Developing Child Center at Harvard University champions the “Two Generation” approach when you are working with traumatized and distressed children. The Two Generation approach considers the parents as equals with their children in the intervention project. Parents often are recreating or reliving the traumatic conditions of their childhood so any work with children must equally address the parent’s challenges.
Besides attachment there are many other parent characteristics that heavily influence child and youth behavior. A 2011 study in the journal “Developmental Review”, summarized the results of 48 previous studies and found that the aggression in children and youth was related to the parent’s style of parenting. Positive parenting was associated with less aggression while a harsher and un-involved parenting style was related to aggression by their children. When the father had a controlling parenting style there was more aggression displayed by their children.
There are many other studies documenting the influence of parents on child and youth behavior but the point is that we don’t want to isolate the children or youth from their family and friends ecology. We need to work with both generations when we are engaging families who are struggling with their children.
— Peter Farnden, CEO, WJS Canada