Bowlby's Attachment Theory

Sensitive parenting is the most important factor in a child’s psychological development

Parents are the first and perhaps most profound influence on their children 's lives. Considering different aspects of psychological development this essay is going through some evidence to see what the researchers mean by sensitive parenting: Bowlby’s attachment theory, The Strange Situation, Zimmerman, Hamilton, Baumrind and others. A sensitive person is somebody who can “quick detect or respond to slight changes, signals, or influences”, as the Oxford Dictionaries says. A sensitive parent will respond to the child’s signals and behaviours in an appropriate and effective manner. The child who receives sensitive and responsive caregiving develops
To measure the mother’s type of interaction with her child Vondra et al. (1995) studied 95 mothers and their 12 month old infants in a laboratory. Mothers had to be classified in one of the three groups: sensitive, controlling, or unresponsive. Mother and infant were video recorded in three different episodes. In the first episode mother completed some questionnaires, while the infant was in a high chair. In the second episode mother continued with her questionnaires and the infant was free to play around the room, but without having any toys to play with. And the third episode was an activity of four tasks: putting wooden blocks in a box, playing a toy xylophone, stacking plastic rings and playing with the levers on an activity box. All these episodes were followed by the Strange Situation Assessment. The results from Vondra’s study showed that infant’s attachment classifications could be predicted well from the mothers’ group classification. Sensitive mothers are more likely to have children with secure attachment, controlling mothers’ tend to have avoidant children and unresponsive mothers have ambivalent attached children. So sensitive parenting is an important factor in a child’s
There are four styles of child-rearing: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and non – conformist. Sensitive parenting does not mean giving your child everything or not enforcing rules. According to Winnicott “a good – enough mother will allow just the right amount of delay in meeting an infant’s needs to encourage both tolerance of waiting and confidence in ultimate satisfaction”, (Ding et al., 2005, p.25) this leading to a healthy development of independence and sense of self. In the authoritarian parent style the children are expected to follow strict rules established by the parents, without asking why and obedience being very important. Authoritative parenting also has rules but the parents are responsive to their children and willing to listen to questions using rational explications. Permissive Parenting is the indulgent style where the parents are available as resources and not demanding at all. And the last parent style is the non – conformist one. Here the parents are less passive with few demands and little communication with their children. Parenting style has a big impact in a child’s life. The authoritarian parenting style brings children that are obedient, but they lack in self-esteem and social competence. The authoritative parenting style looks like is the best style to develop children that are confident, happy, and independent, with self – esteem. The permissive parenting