Secure attachment

Secure attachment is classified by children who show some distress when their caregiver leaves but are able to compose themselves quickly when the caregiver returns. Children with secure attachment feel protected by their caregivers, and they know that they can depend on them to return. A securely attached child can use their parent as a safe base to explore their surroundings and is easily comforted after being separated or when feeling stressed.

Infants are born with natural behaviors that help them survive. Attachment behavior allows an infant to draw people near them when they are in need of help or are in distress. Humans' instinct for attachment is a basic adaptation for survival that most mammals share, and when infants and adults feel stresses or under alert their attachment system is alerted. Attachment is a specific and focused aspect of the child-caregiver relationship that plays a key role in ensuring the child’s sense of safety, security, and protection. It refers to the way a child relies on their primary caregiver as a secure base for exploring the world and, when needed, as a safe haven and source of comfort.

John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth developed a theory known as attachment theory after inadvertently studying children who were patients in a hospital at which they were working. John Bowlby aimed to understand the deep distress infants experience when separated from their parents. He noticed that these infants would make great efforts—such as crying, clinging, and searching—to avoid being separated or to get close to a parent who was missing. Attachment theory explains how the parent-child relationship emerges and provides influence on subsequent behaviors and relationships. Stemming from this theory, there are four main types of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalent attachment, avoidant attachment and disorganized attachment.

Children who are securely attached typically are visibly upset as their caregivers leave, but they are happy upon their return. These children seek comfort from their parent or caregiver when frightened. In an instance when their parent or primary caregiver is not available, these children can be comforted to a degree by others, but they prefer their familiar parent or caregiver. Likewise, when parents with secure attachments reach out to their children, the children welcome the connection. Playing with children is more common when parents and children have a secure attachment. These parents react more quickly to their children's needs and are typically more responsive to a child they are securely attached to than one of insecure attachment. Attachment carries on throughout the growth of the children. Studies support that secure attachments with primary caregivers lead to more mature and less aggressive children than those with avoidant or ambivalent attachment styles.

The relationship type infants establish with their primary caregiver can predict the course of their relationships and connections throughout their lives. Children begin to perceive the parenting that they receive as early as 12 months old. Therefore, to create a supportive and secure relationship between parent and child, it is important for parents to be mindful of their actions even in the early ages of their child's life. Children who are securely attached tend to be more empathetic and responsive to others needs as a result of their own parents mirroring that to them. Those who are securely attached have high self-esteem, seek out social connection and support and are able to share their feelings with other people. They also tend to have long-term, trusting relationships. Secure attachment has been shown to act as a buffer to determinants of health among preschoolers, including stress and poverty. One study supports that women with a secure attachment style had more positive feelings with regard to their adult relationships than women with insecure attachment styles. Within an adult romantic relationship, secure attachment can mean both people engage in close, bodily contact, disclose information with one another, share discoveries with each other and feel safe when the other is nearby.

Co-parenting behaviors can effect the ability of a child to form secure attachment. Supportive collaborative parenting styles were found to foster secure attachment in children not only with their parents but also their peers. Supportive collaborative parenting was found when maternal and paternal behaviors and attitude were united and consisted with each other.

There are believed to be two components of secure attachment theory, one of those being a secure base. A secure base must give enough room to explore while still offering a safe haven to return to in distress with a strong attachment figure being the "secure base" in which a child will feel comfortable returning to. The second component of the secure attachment theory are internal working models. IWMs are the cognitive mental structures or schemas that determine how a child perceives the parenting they perceive. IWMs are important because as a child grows older, they tend to rely on IWMs rather than an actual parental figure to guide them. Children begin to perceive the parenting they revise as early as 12 months old. Securely attached children often develop IWMs of available care. Characteristics of parents who have secure attachment should create a feeling of closeness and supportiveness to support both the secure base theory and the IWM theory.

When focusing on how to promote secure attachment, it is important for parents to consider what may lead to other more negative forms of attachment. For example, anxious attachment in children was found to be the result of over-autonomy practices over their children. Avoidant attachment in children was found to be the result of parents restricting children's autonomy.