In social sciences and psychology, the term emotional attachment may refer to the process of understanding the expressive closeness and affection that binds people together. It enables caregivers to prepare children early enough for independence and parenthood. Children are naturally dependent on their parents and close relatives for personal and intellectual growth. The nature of family inter-relations has significant influences on their experiences and well-being. The emotional attachment provides children with a ground for exploration. From such connections, they learn how to relate with people, understand their personalities, and live passionately. The length of childhood helps individuals understand the complexities of a particular task and the scope of impacts caused by parent-child dysfunctional attachment. The current trends of juvenile delinquency signify poor parenting and inadequate emotional attachment.
Attachment Style
Studies in social and psychological sciences indicate that parents and guardians influence the attachment of children. Both attachment and parenting styles impact children’s psychological, behavioral, physical, and developmental issues (Mónaco et al., 2019). For instance, in sickness cases, parents respond differently to their children in a move that determines the impact of attachment patterns. Inadequate childhood attachment poses a significant risk to children as they grow because they might maintain poor relationships with other people. When children experience emotional challenges at a young age, they will not be mentally fit. Such inefficacies in childcare is one of the critical causes of the high crime rates among contemporary teenagers. Parenting difficulties predisposes children to drug abuse, promiscuity, early pregnancy, and criminal offenses. Therefore, parents need to positively influence their children and teach them to value and understand others around them.
Emotional attachments and parenting styles tend to develop throughout life. Being a parent and taking care of a child is an exciting experience. Childrearing styles are unique among various families around the globe. Siegel and Bryson (2016) explain that the way caregivers attend to the needs advanced by their children denotes parenting styles. In the early 1960s, a psychological expert researched preschool-age children and created a theory of three parenting approaches; authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive nurturing. The styles highlighted above fall into two dimensions: the extent to which guardians are helpful and sensitive to the child’s needs and how they command and control their children. Research has added more styles of parenting by making use of fourfold classification. Of all the classes, authoritative nurturing is the most effective (Siegel & Bryson, 2016). Parenting styles have a significant impact on children’s development, actions, goal attainment, and ingenuity. These approaches also influence creativity, attention, and social adequacy among children. Therefore, parents have a close role in dictating future professionalism among children in modern societies.
Additionally, attachment theory hinges on different fields of psychology. Bowlby (1969/1982) previously developed this approach to describe why children have close associations with their guardians and to what degree distractions impact development later in their lives (Mónaco et al., 2019). The approach gives a development framework that explains both normative growth and personal differences in emotional, behavioral, and social results throughout childhood. Significantly, the role of the attachment system during childhood is to expand the well-being and security of a child’s development. During times of suffering and anxiety, parents often expose their children to sensitive actions that enhance emotional attachment. The move-in turn gives children social confidence and minimizes their predisposition to danger. As the children grow, they develop a more significant range of actions for attaining closeness to the caregivers. Later, the focus on protection changes to something more like emotional assistance. By the time they are adolescents, the accompanying outcome of the attachment system is more towards “experienced safety” on the teenager’s part rather than actual physical safety. The security can be attainable through different methods without the attachment figure being present.
As children grow, emphasis on physical protection and closeness diminishes. Such a reduction in safety takes effect because mature children and adolescents can attain self-protection without physical attachment to people. In their maturity, children have the power to interact with their surroundings by themselves (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). During the adolescent period, the issues arise when mature children think that they can handle different situations without their parents’ assistance. Children go through detachment, and therefore, they see their parents as imperfect and not as people who know everything and powerful.
One of the most impactful elements in adolescent developments expressing and internalizing behavioral issues is parental style. There is a more significant agreement that parenting’s key objective is to create positive associations with children and adolescents to ensure their development is a priority in their lives (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). This proposition implies that the relationship between parents and children must focus on communication, support, consequences, routine structures and limits the establishment of positive character. However, positive parenting is a challenging task. During the adolescent period, there is a trend toward an increase in family conflicts. Conflicts arise because the developmental transitions and new challenges that girls and boys face result in emotional judgments. They tend to think that their parents have no say in their lives and that they can survive on their own.
Parenting Style and Behavioral Problems
Authoritarian and Authoritative
If a caregiver uses an authoritarian parenting style, the child might be obedient and proficient. However, such children may not be happy and socially competent. Hence, they are likely to have low self-esteem. Authoritarian parents tend to punish their children when they go against the desired values and norms (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). They do not explain why such norms and values exist in the first place and always believe that they are right (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). These demands and rules are not responsive to their children. Parents expect children not to make any mistakes. Yet, they give them little or no direction regarding what they must do or must not do in the future (Siegel & Bryson, 2016). Their mistakes attract severe punishments, resulting in children being rebellious and disrespectful (Siegel & Bryson, 2016). Parents can suffer from depression and deal with it in the best way they think, such as abusing drugs or committing suicide.
Additionally, authoritative parents make rules and regulations that their children follow. They equally give instances where young individuals can exercise democracy. Authoritarian parents respond to their children and are willing to listen to their questions (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). They tend to anticipate a lot from their children and have high expectations. Nevertheless, they decline to offer necessary help, feedback, and or even embrace them. Parents should understand that when children do not meet their expectations, they should forgive and correct through nurturing and forgiveness rather than punishment (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). These parents are capable of monitoring and impacting clear rules for the conduct of their children. They do not restrict their children and support them in any way they can (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). Authoritative nurturing helps the children to be assertive, responsible, and cooperative. As such, they are enabled to tackle their challenges open-heartedly through great reasoning and self-control. In adulthood, children can make decisions without coercion and become socially responsible boys and girls. Besides, an authoritative kind of support helps the children be aggressive and think independently without relying on outside sources.
Permissive and Uninvolved
Permissive parents have very few commands for their children as they grow up. They hardly discipline their children and do not expect much from them. They offer insufficient rules and regulations and do not anticipate established action from their children. Studies indicate that children raised by permissive parents are not self-disciplined and have poor social skills. Permissive caregiving also leads to more demanding and insecure children because of insufficient guidance and boundaries (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). During the adolescent period, they tend to be rude and inconsiderate because they lacked appropriate advice (Siegel & Bryson, 2016). Besides, they are likely to make poor decisions because their guardians cannot enforce any regulations. Such a problem forces them to struggle with acquiring good decision-making and problem-solving techniques. Children raised through the permissive style easily follow advice from other people. Often, they are unable to make decisions for themselves and develop without definite self-discipline.
Uninvolved parenting style or neglectful parenting denote the act of not responding to the need of the child. These caregivers make insufficient or no commands of their children, and they are likely to be dismissive or completely neglectful. Such parents do not care about what their children are doing (Cacioppo et al., 2019). They have very little emotional attachment with their children. These caregivers provide their children with basic needs but do not participate in monitoring their well-being. Due to a lack of attention, as they grow, the children tend to learn on their own to take care of basic needs at an early age. Equally, these children cannot develop emotional connections with their parents, resulting in poor social skills.
The children are likely to have low interaction social skills while their peers socialize freely and make decisions independently (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). An uninvolved parenting style can do more harm than good for children, especially teenagers. Children raised through uninvolved parenting lack self-confidence and are unsure about their capabilities (Mónaco et al., 2019). These children are also insecure and anxious about small things. Moreover, adolescents are likely to be miserable, stressed, depressed, and lonely. They will always try to be social around others to forget their emptiness inside.
Such individuals do not handle their behaviors well; hence, they cannot get peace of mind and guardians’ emotional security. Besides, they may resort to drug abuse as a strategy to forget their present troubles. This kind of parenting style also affects their children when it comes to accepting authorities. In uninvolved caregiving, children do not receive appropriate guidance (Siegel & Hartzell, 2013). Such ineffective guidance results in disobedience both at home and in school. Therefore, uninvolved parenting has a significant impact on their jobs and education because they fail to recognize positions.
Conclusion
Research has continued to link the parent’s involvement with possible outcomes in the development and growth of children. As such, how a child develops solely depends on the upbringing. In social sciences and psychology, the term emotional attachment may refer to the process of understanding the emotional closeness that binds people together. Parents must ensure that they are responsible and guide their children appropriately to avoid adolescent issues. They should also understand the needs of their children and the risk of choosing an ineffective parenting style. Parents have a critical role in ensuring that their children are psychologically and physically suited to address the challenges posed by adulthood experiences.
References
Cacioppo, M., Barni, D., Correale, C., Mangialavori, S., Danioni, F., & Gori, A. (2019). Do attachment styles and family functioning predict adolescents’ problematic internet use? A relative weight analysis. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(5), 1263-1271.
Mónaco, E., Schoeps, K., & Montoya-Castilla, I. (2019). Attachment styles and well-being in adolescents: How does emotional development affect this relationship? International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(14), 2554.
Siegel, J., & Bryson, P. (2016). No-drama discipline: The whole-brain way to calm the chaos and nurture your child’s developing mind. Bantam.
Siegel, J., & Hartzell, M. (2013). Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help, you raise children who thrive. Penguin.