
Attachment theory is having a breakout moment - daegloe
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/opinion/sunday/yes-its-your-parents-fault.html
======
orthoganol
You may find it interesting to read about attachment type correlations with
certain countries/ cultures, from a developmental psychology textbook I have:

Perhaps surprisingly, the relative incidence of different attachment styles,
as measured using Ainsworth’s Strange Situation, varies dramatically across
cultures (Thompson, 1998; Van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988). Consider, for
example, the substantial cultural differences shown in Table 6.2. The majority
of German infants studied were measured as insecurely attached (mostly
avoidant, or Type A). Japanese infants showed no avoidant attachments
whatsoever, and they were almost three times as likely as their American
counterparts to show anxious (Type C) attachments. Finally, one group of
Israeli children showed almost 10 times as many anxious attachments as Swedish
children. Because the procedure used in the Strange Situation is relatively
straightforward, it does not seem that these variations can be explained by
simple methodological discrepancies in how the assessments were conducted
(Harwood et al., 1995; Thompson, 1998; Van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988).

From "Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior", p. 236

------
freditup
> By the end of our first year, we have stamped on our baby brains a pretty
> indelible template of how we think relationships work, based on how our
> parents or other primary caregivers treat us.

It seems that the article is stating that one's attachment system is developed
primarily in their first year of life? If attachment theory is true, I
would've guessed that the first ten or twelve years of life would all
contribute.

> [many people] are insecurely attached because their early experiences were
> suboptimal (their caregivers were distracted, overbearing, dismissive,
> unreliable, absent or perhaps threatening)...

If the first year is the formative year for one's attachment disposition, the
meaning of "overbearing" is much different than say, it would be for a ten
year old or early teenager. I'm curious what period of life these studies were
looking at.

~~~
obstinate
This finding is also stressing me out. My son is 2 1/2 years old. Did I love
him enough in his first year? Any way for me to tell? The article seems light
on such details.

~~~
bildung
_> This finding is also stressing me out. My son is 2 1/2 years old. Did I
love him enough in his first year? Any way for me to tell?_

(Educational scientist here, psychology was part of my studies. I'm not a
psychologist, though.)

Don't stress yourself. If you're loving your kid and are able to physically
show it, e.g. you're able to cuddle your son, hold him when something bad
happened etc., then you have the first major factor in check. You should be
the calm and readily available ressource for emotional warmth if the kid needs
it.

The second factor is consistency: Identical child behaviour should produce
identical parental reactions. E.g. "Look dad, I built something awesome!"
shouldn't generate a "Oh great!" on day one and "I don't want to see that
crap, I'm tired from work" on day two. The same goes for negative behavior.
That makes it easier for the child to grasp the external actions as results of
own behavior, thus easing the development of self-efficacy. It's perfectly
fine to be stressed out from work, BTW! It should just be clear for the kid
that this is not the kid's fault.

The difference with helicopter parents: It's perfectly fine for the kid to
throw a tantrum if it's not getting that muffin just before lunch. If your
reasoning is rational and _consistent_ , it's fine to enforce that calmly. And
it's fine for the kid to be pissed. It's perfectly fine for the kid to do
risky things on the playground. If the kid hurts itself, comfort it, and
that's it.

~~~
obstinate
Consistency is probably our biggest weakness. We try but we are not as
disciplined as we should be. Thanks for the reality check.

------
gammarator
Parental genetics are far more important than parenting style in determining
what kind of person you turn out to be.

And the "nurture" that matters is your peers, not your parents.

Skeptical? I highly recommend this book-length treatment of the research
literature: [https://www.amazon.com/Nurture-Assumption-Children-
Revised-U...](https://www.amazon.com/Nurture-Assumption-Children-Revised-
Updated/dp/1439101655/)

Unless they are doing twin & adoption studies (hard!), attachment researchers
are conflating parenting practices (these warm and loving parents had a warm &
loving kid!) with genetics.

~~~
jcoffland
The nature vs nurture argument is not going to be settled by one book. I can
see if you raised some shitty kids how the "it's mostly nature" theory would
be attractive. I believe it's a combination of both nature and nurture.

~~~
AstralStorm
However, nature feeds into nurture and not the other way around.

Is you tried raising a disabled child or one with extreme variant of
personality you would know that such conditions tend to enact sets of
behaviour in the environment and parents. Generally not conducive to proper
upbringing one way or another.

------
robbiep
For anyone interested in a good overview of attachment theory, there was a
Science Vs. episode recently on it:

[https://gimletmedia.com/episode/2-attachment-
parenting/](https://gimletmedia.com/episode/2-attachment-parenting/)

the standout thing in there being the definition of 'well-attached'

~~~
ohthehugemanate
Worth noting the difference between attachment theory and attachment
parenting.

Attachment theory is a psychological model. It proposes that during early
childhood, we learn how to respond "within relationships when hurt, separated
from loved ones, or perceiving a threat." We learn this by modeling the
behavior of our parents.

Attachment parenting is a parenting philosophy (not a consistent theory)
invented and spread to a popular audience in the 90's by evangelical christian
pediatrician William Sears. It proposes that mothers should maximize physical
contact with her infant by wearing the baby during the day, co-sleeping at
night, breastfeeding, and responding immediately (or pre-emptively) to all
crying. The philosophy recommends women stay in the home to focus on child
rearing in this way for the first three years. After that, motherhood should
be their "supreme career." After the philosophy was formulated, Sears made an
ex post connection to attachment theory, but is otherwise unrelated.

One of them is a respectable scientific theory; the other is a very lucrative
fad of anti-woman, patriarchal bullshit with no basis in science.

~~~
robbiep
Well put

------
yomly
How do we guard against this when it is becoming increasingly the case that
both parents work full-time?

It seems like parenthood is itself more than a full-time job...

~~~
orthoganol
From a childhood development textbook I once read, having a parent around
during the day vs. a nanny apparently doesn't make much of a difference. A
nanny, relative, or any caregiver giving regular attention typically has the
same effects as if she/ he were a parent.

~~~
jcoffland
There's a parenting book out there that will tell you whatever it is you want
to hear.

~~~
orthoganol
"parenting book" != childhood development / developmental psychology textbook
that is the 101 textbook at many elite universities. I mention the book
elsewhere in this thread.

------
mcoliver
Attachment parenting has some merits but is a bit over the top in my opinion.
Do I want my kid to start screaming the minute I walk away or hand them to
someone else? Absolutely not. I want them to be self confident and happy
knowing that I would not leave them in a dangerous situation, give them to a
bad person, and that I will come back for them. That is a truly "secure"
child.

~~~
spraak
You're misunderstanding how attachment parenting works. In fact it's just as
you'd like, that through this way of relating with your child/ren they become
secure in their own sense of self. It is when the parents too early leave the
child alone that they don't form a stable sense of self.

~~~
jcoffland
Actually, this is exactly how I've seen it work with some parents who
subscribe to attachment parenting.

------
seanmceligot
The simplest explanation I've heard of attachment theory is kids should be
attached to parents securely enough that they are comfortable transferring
that attachment to friends and relationships later. Too far in one direction
and the child never leaves the parents side or the parent never lets the child
grow up. Too far in the other direction and the child never learns healthy
bonding and trust.

------
_yvjs
Alternate perspective:

"Rethinking the Transmission Gap: What Behavioral Genetics and Evolutionary
Psychology Mean for Attachment Theory",
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303952365_Rethinkin...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303952365_Rethinking_the_Transmission_Gap_What_Behavioral_Genetics_and_Evolutionary_Psychology_Mean_for_Attachment_Theory_A_Comment_on_Verhage_et_al_2016)

"Top 10 Replicated Findings From Behavioral Genetics",
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691615617439](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691615617439)

I would really recommend reading the above (in particular finding 9 from the
second survey). The media has a strong bias towards environmental theories of
human traits.

~~~
venamresm__
Why not add to this list the following:

"Three Laws of Behavior Genetic and What They Mean",
[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/three_laws.pdf](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/three_laws.pdf)

"Why Do People Believe that Birth Order Has Important Effects on
Personality?", [http://judithrichharris.info/tna/birth-
order/believe.htm](http://judithrichharris.info/tna/birth-order/believe.htm)

------
woodandsteel
Anybody know if cognitive-behavioral therapists have methods for dealing with
attachment problems?

------
mrdrozdov
This seems like a specific case of Curriculum Learning from the machine
learning literature.

------
roryisok
I honestly read that as "Attachment theory is having breakfast at the moment".

------
RodericDay
A buddy of mine has a 2.5 year old daughter. They're not going full-tilt
gender-neutral, but as engineers, they're also conscious of not just giving
her dolls and whatnot.

Anyway, her mom from the get-go has had her wear both dresses, pants,
snowsuits, a big variety of clothing.

The other day she refused to wear pants. "If I don't wear a dress, nobody will
tell me I'm pretty!". A 2.5 year old. It's crazy how much kids pick up in such
a tiny period of time.

~~~
bigmanwalter
I've heard an extremely similar story from a friend. First I thought "Wow,
what are the chances?", but it turns out that the Internet's a small place.

Hi Harold.

------
theGimp
A lot of connections made in that article, with no data to back any of it.

~~~
dang
This is the kind of shallow, uncharitable dismissal that we need less of on
Hacker News. Obviously a popular news treatment isn't going to supply "data".

When it comes to the work of Bowlby and Ainsworth, you could hardly be more
wrong, since apart from everything else they were champions of empirical
observation.

~~~
blazespin
Maybe a little less paywall nytimes on HN as well. I dunno, but I find a lot
of their journalism is just 90% padding. I suspect we see a lot of distrust in
media isn't just that they're inaccurate, but they're often filled with non
experts trying to sound like experts by padding nonsense speculation into
their articles.

I mean, is this the same Kate Murphy that wrote "10 richest U.S. presidents
before Trump takes top spot" I'm not saying she's bright. She's probably
smarter there most and I'd love for her to comment in on HN. But I don't think
she should be writing articles titled "Yes it's your parents fault"

~~~
dang
The standard here is to judge each article on its own merit, and this is a
good piece, certainly above the median. The title is beyond stupid, but
reporters don't write those. We changed it to a representative phrase from the
text, as usual with baity titles.

On the paywall thing please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989).

------
cylinder
NYT seems to be the national hub for pop-science these days.

------
jayajay
Half (as mentioned in article) of soon-to-be parents are _not_ fit for the
job, and a significant amount choose to defer the job via abortion or
adoption. This begs the question -- should the state intervene in sexual
reproduction?

Should more babies be given up to the state to be distributed to people who
have earned the job title of "parent"? The amount of kids living in poverty,
and/or having incompetent parents is not a trivial fraction. Should it be the
duty of a civilization to engineer generations; to save these children? At
what point does "a child" become the responsibility/property of everyone, and
not just the responsibility/property of the biological parents?

These are the hard questions that no one wants to think about.

~~~
cowardlydragon
Or, perhaps we (the United States) as a society shouldn't be stressing out
mothers in the critical first year by shoving them back to work after, what,
three months (if you have good bennies)?

Or completely drain our social welfare system and establish a demand-starved
economy with wealth inequality and a draconian health care system that leaves
all families stressed and overworked?

Or we can go with your bullshit predetermined social darwinianism.

~~~
njloof
One of the reasons I'm glad I moved from the States to Canada. It's remarkable
how once you get used to the idea of a year of parent leave (partly shareable
between mother and father), business adjusts to it like any other constraint.

