With this information, Bowlby realized that the current explanation from Freud that infants love their mother because of oral gratification was wrong. His new theory stated that infants are social from a very young age, 6 months to less than two years old. The infants become focused on a particular individual or a few individuals. Bowlby proposed that “patterns of relating acquired in the early parent-child relationship are internalized and form the basis for how an individual enters and subsequently maintains other close relationships” (Bretherton). Bowlby's aim was to discover the consequences of difficulties in forming attachments in childhood, and the effects this would have on an infant's later development.
Abusive parents who use hitting, neglecting basic needs, and other action that lower an individual’s sense of self-worth, have a negative impact on the health of a child. Nurture also affects the growth of humans, because studies show that babies who receive affection from their parents will develop from children to adults who are happy and competent. It is proven that children who lack early emotional attachments or grow up fearful and expecting to be hurt will have a difficult time relating to peers. Nurturing their children the most important thing that parents can do. A parent’s
Since a child is entirely dependent on his or her caregivers, the value of the care that the child receives is an important role to the formation and development of the child’s personality. Occurring in this developmental stage children learn if they can trust or mistrust the people surrounding them in their life. For example when a baby is crying, does the caregiver come to comfort and satisfy the baby’s needs? Whether the caregiver is consistent or inconsistent in satisfying the child’s needs (such as feeding, changing diapers, and comforting) can determine how the the child in the future see’s the world and the people inhabiting it. If done consistently the child will learn to trust the people caring for him or her, creating a bond and as the child matures the people they meet later in life can give him a sense of trust and security.
The usual targets of this kind of violence are women that are most likely, injured. Children living in a household with IPV may not actually witness violent events but are nonetheless exposed to IPV through after-effects including the physical and / or psychological traumatic impacts on the victim. IPV exposure impacts these children and often results to negative short and long term behavioral, psychological, cognitive and social impacts on children. These children witnessing the violence sometimes get involved in the IPV by being caught in the conflict unintentionally or while stepping in to defend a parent being victimized. Children exposed to IPV are also likely to be victims of child maltreatment, as there is a high co-occurrence of both types of violence.
Describe and Evaluate One Theory of Attachment and Consider its Significance on Child Rearing Today Bowlby (1951) was influenced by ethological studies that suggested infants were "genetically programmed to form attachments to a single caregiver within a critical time period." The critical time period described is called the "sensitive period," it is a period of time in which something is likely to occur. He suggested that "mother love in infancy is as important for mental health as vitamins and proteins are for physical health." Bowlby focused on the mother as the attachment figure. Bowlby argued that attachment was an "evolved mechanism;" an innate response that ensured the survival of the child.
Bowlby noted the apparent distress in children separated from their mothers in unusual circumstances e.g. hospitalisation. In studying the more abnormal and distressing situations he attempted to shed light on an understanding of normal emotional attachment development, and how a disruption could prove damaging to the child emotionally and through to adult maturation. Bowlby suggested that the presence of the mother was just as crucial to the baby as being supplied basic needs such as food. His conclusions led him to postulate that the distress at separation from the mother was universal in babies.
Attachment theory, as postulated by John Bowlby, sought to achieve just that. Bowlby's aim was to discover the consequences of difficulties in forming attachments in childhood, and the effects this would have on an infant's later development. Drawing on much work in the psychoanalytic literature, such as that of Freud and Harlow, Bowlby formulated the idea that infants develop a close emotional bond with an attachment figure early in life, and that the success or failure of this earliest of relationships lead the infant to form a mental representation that would have profound effects on their later relationships and their own success as a parent. A concept that Bowlby referred to as an internal working model. (Bowlby, 1969) Fonagy et al.
Bowlby claimed that infants need one special attachment relationship that is qualatively different from all others. Lastly, the internal working model which is developed through the monotropic attachment. This model represents the infant’s knowledge about his/her relationship with the primary attachment figure, in other words, the mother. It generates expectations about other relationships, so whatever relationship the mother has formed with their child, whether she is kind and loving, or aggressive and uncaring, the child will develop and have this expectation in mind of all future relationships. For example, Hazan and Shaver (1987) showed that there is a link between early attachment experiences and later romantic relationships.
According to Bowlby (1973) a strong emotional bond between the mother figure and the infant called attachment has the biological origin. He hypothesised that for the baby to survive, it has to for an attachment, it needs to have a secure base, from which it can explore the environment and in times of danger or distress, a base it can return to for comfort and security. Bowlby argued that lack of such a secure base leads to infant developing an extreme distress called by developmental psychologists a 'separation anxiety'. The research by Robertson and Robertson (1989) into parent-child separations when either a primary caregiver or a child becomes hospitalized validates Bowlby's reasoning. This idea of attachment as innate adaptation mechanism is also supported by Harlow's (1958) research on primates into maternal deprivation.
During this stage, it is known that young infants need the attention and care that their parents are supposed to provide to them. The baby will understand whether the world is safe or not. If the child is neglected due to the parent or care giver, then the child will grow up not trusting the world or his or her future relationships. “Success in this stage will lead to a virtue of hope” (McLeod, 2008). Since this is the first stage in Erikson’s psychosocial development, it is crucial that parents give their children care in order for the future stages of development to be fulfilled.