‘Difficult’ children are only slightly more likely to have insecure attachments with parents
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Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Children with difficult temperaments, including personality tendencies such as irritability and having a hard time being comforted, are only slightly more likely than other children to have insecure attachment relationships with one or both of their parents, according to our research.
Key Points:
- Children with difficult temperaments, including personality tendencies such as irritability and having a hard time being comforted, are only slightly more likely than other children to have insecure attachment relationships with one or both of their parents, according to our research.
- This finding refutes the long-standing notion held by many psychologists that early attachment behaviors are mainly determined by a child’s temperament.
- A secure attachment is likely if a caregiver is consistently available and emotionally supportive when the child is alarmed.
How we do our work
- For this meta-analysis, we combined data collected over the past 40 years on 872 children from North American families.
- Instead, a difficult temperament had very little to do with the number of insecure attachment relationships a child had with their parents.
- And temperament was only slightly more difficult in infants who had insecure attachment with both parents rather than with only one or neither of the parents.
Why it matters
- The results from our latest study suggest that even children with inborn characteristics of a difficult temperament can benefit from the advantages that come from multiple secure attachments.
- These findings may reassure worried parents.