These types of behaviors in a child who otherwise seems to have a secure attachment style are a normal part of development. It's also important to recognize that a child's attachment style can be changed and become more secure as their parent consistently helps them to feel safe, loved, and encouraged.
For those with insecure styles, learning to develop a secure attachment may feel impossible or challenging. A 2020 study found that it is possible to change your attachment style and become less anxious or avoidant over time, with the intention of working toward a secure attachment style.
Highlights. Attachment is a dynamic process—one that has the potential to change across time. Youth tend to maintain relatively low levels of attachment-anxiety. Levels of attachment-avoidance gradually increase from childhood to adolescence.
The most difficult type of insecure attachment is the disorganized attachment style.
Which Attachment Style Is Most Manipulative? On the more extreme end of anxious attachment, a person may be more likely to become emotionally manipulative because they will go through as much as they can to make sure an attachment figure doesn't leave them.
Factors affecting attachment
These may include: abuse, maltreatment and trauma experienced by the parent or child. parental mental health difficulties. parental substance misuse.
Promoting a secure attachment style in childhood
Secure attachment typically develops in children in the first eighteen months of life.
Separation anxiety in babies starts at around 8 to 9 months, tends to peak between 12 and 24 months, and may last until your child is 3 years old. It begins once babies form an attachment to their primary caregivers and gain an understanding of object permanence (that people still exist when out of sight).
Attachment issues can arise for a number of reasons, but they are typically rooted in childhood experiences. Inconsistent or neglectful caregivers, for example, may play a part in attachment disorders in childhood as well as attachment issues in adulthood.
Childhood trauma or abuse can contribute to a disorganized (or fearful-avoidant) attachment style. In these cases, a baby might see the parent as a source of comfort as well as a threat. This can lead to suspicion, hostility, and lack of commitment in later relationships.
That said, most people will feel complete with their work after 1-2 years of weekly therapy to change your attachment style. Even after therapy, you will likely need to work to understand and adjust your behaviors in relationships throughout your lifetime.
It is possible to overcome an anxious attachment style through therapy, emotional self-regulation, and recognizing anxious attachment signs before they escalate. From childhood to adulthood, experiences can shape a person and ultimately define how they form healthy and loving attachments and relationships with others.
Can Your Attachment Style Change? The good news is that your attachment style can change over time—although it's slow and difficult. Research shows that an anxious or avoidant who enters a long-term relationship with a secure can be “raised up” to the level of the secure over an extended period of time.
Children are given three descriptions of feelings and perceptions about relationships with other children and are asked to choose the description that best fits them. The measure classifies children according to one of three attachment styles: Secure, Avoidant, or Ambivalent.
The role of a disorganized attachment style
A child can develop a disorganized attachment when they have not received coherent caregiving or have been mistreated, neglected, or traumatized by their caregiver. This results in a child being fearful and avoidant, as they don't know what to expect.
Secure attachment style was the most common attachment style and the least common was ambivalent attachment style.
Parents play many different roles in the lives of their children, including teacher, playmate, disciplinarian, caregiver and attachment figure. Of all these roles, their role as an attachment figure is one of the most important in predicting the child's later social and emotional outcome (1–3).
Signs of secure attachment in children
They are able to trust that their caregiver is a dependable adult who can be relied upon for the baby's needs. They feel free to explore their surroundings and return to their caregivers for comfort or assistance because they are the base of security.
Some studies showed that differences in attachment styles seem to influence both the frequency and the patterns of jealousy expression: individuals with the preoccupied or fearful-avoidant attachment styles more often become jealous and consider rivals as more threatening than those with the secure attachment style [9, ...
People with an avoidant attachment style can come across as selfish, appearing to put their own needs in front of their partner's needs. When their partner expresses feelings or needs, they might show annoyance or disdain.