Attachment & Infant Child Care Centers

Infants and toddlers need to be helped to make secure emotional attachment to adults. There are many advantages in an infant and toddlers emotional attachment to caregivers. Infants pay special attention to attachment figures. This attention helps the child learn from how the adult reacts and how they speak. Infants learn through informal direction, not a formal lesson or instruction from a teacher.
Infants and toddlers learn how to respond to events based on how their caregiver(s) react. Emotional reactions affect an infant or toddlers response to an event. The child learns from caregivers what to think about things (a toy, a spider, an open door). This kind of learning comes from observation of the caregiver’s facial expression, gestures, posture, and tone of voice. Infants carefully observe the responses of attachment figures to unfamiliar events. Emotional attachment to child care providers helps infants learn about emotional reactions during the many hours they are at the child care center, just as they would do if they were cared for at home throughout the day.
Infants and toddlers also learn by exploring their surroundings, but they refrain from doing so unless an attachment figure is present. This is because the child views the attachment figure as a “secure base”, a place where they can go to in order to feel safe when there are unknown objects or strangers around. When a child is securely emotionally attached to an adult, they will make short ventures into an unfamiliar environment, occasionally looking back at the secure base for emotional support. If an attachment figure is not present, then the child is much less likely to explore and may stay in one spot, crying or rocking themselves to soothe their anxiety.
Infants and toddlers are able to emotionally attach to people who are biologically unrelated to them. Infants and toddlers have no more than three or four emotional attachment figures. Developing emotional attachments to caregivers in a child