Introduction
Children require a lot of attention from their caregivers during their early stages of development. The lack of suck attention leads to certain detrimental effects on the development of the child. Attachment disorder is among the disorders that children develop when they are brought up by individuals who do not care about them. According to Pearce, the formal diagnostic terms for attachment disorder as “Reactive Attachment Disorder of Infancy or Childhood (RAD)’ (31). However, this depends upon the diagnostic conventions in the child’s country of origin i.e. the country of the child’s birth. This paper explores different aspects of attachment disorder in infants and toddlers.
Attachment as applied in the development of a child
An attachment as it is defined in the attachment theory has a particular meaning both in terms of nature and in terms of the person to whom it applies. According to the attachment theory, an attachment is a bond or a tie between an individual and an attachment figure. In the case of an infant, the attachment figure refers to the primary caregiver who is responsible for meeting all the needs of the child in question. In adult relationships, people may be mutual and reciprocal attachment figures but in the relationship between the child and parent or rather the primary care giver, this is not the case. In attachment theory, as aforementioned, an attachment is a tie based on the need for safety, security and protection. The need is paramount in infancy and childhood when the developing individual is immature and vulnerable. Thus, infants instinctively attach to their caregivers. In this particular case, attachment serves the specific biological function of promoting protection and survival (Prior, and Glaser 15).
The development of attachment is essential to the development of trust, as proposed in Erickson’s psychosocial theory of development. As the infant matures, autonomy and exploration become more important as social developmental tasks. When children feel confident and secure in their everyday environments, they willfully and energetically explore their surroundings, learning how to react upon the world and how it reacts to their influences.
Children become more mobile, visibly seeing the attachment relationship becomes easier. By the age of three months, a normal child is capable of responding differently to his/her caregiver (s) than anyone else. For instance, a three-month-old infant may kick his/her arms and legs vigorously when seeing or interacting with a caregiver. However, when interacting with a stranger or another person, the child may respond but not show any form of excitement. As the child ages, the visible reaction of the child is easier to observe. Once children begin to crawl or walk, they will return to their caregivers in times of distress using the caregivers as a safe base. Similarly, the secure attached child will ‘anchor’ away from his/her attachment figure when playing in the playground but will return back occasionally to make sure her/his attachment figure is there and seek physical contact before resuming play. This pattern of returning to a caregiver in times of distress and fro emotional and physical comfort is relatively stable in normal children.
An attachment-disordered child can often be disengaged from, and inattentive towards others in the context of their inability to form meaningful relationships. Such a child struggles with the attention and concentration due to high anxiety levels. They dissociate rather quickly. Attachment-disordered children exhibit apparent difficulties with behavioral control (impulsivity, hyperactivity, aggression, destructiveness) as a function of their need to ‘blow off steam’, control others and reduce their anxiety levels. Prescription of stimulant medication conceivably maintains high anxiety levels and, hence, the perceived problematic behavior. Where any positive effect is noticed, such as reduced motor activity, reduced aggression and reduced hostility, it is possible that this is a function of induced dissociation resulting in reduced motor activity. More commonly, attachment-disordered children are concurrently prescribed medications that lower arousal.
Attachment disorder
Lack of proper cognitive development of children causes them to develop certain mental disorders. Some of the disorders include Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD), and Pervasive Developmental Disorder or rather the Autistic Disorder (Pearce 160). One of the features that can be used to differentiate these disorders from Attachment disorder is that they other disorders or rather disturbances arise from maladaptive perceptions of self, other and world (attachment representations), excessive preoccupation with needs-provision as well as anxiety (over-arousal). Additionally, the attachment disorder can be differentiated from the other childhood mentality disorders based on the fact that the above-mentioned characteristics might reasonably be considered to have risen in the context of inadequate and/or abusive care on the part of the caregiver of the child in question.
The development of the disorder occurs in children who have failed to develop a secure selective attachment to their primary caregiver(s) who have experienced inconsistent, inadequate, insensitive and/or frightening care. One of the primary characteristics of attachment disorder is the gross disturbance in not only social but also the emotional relatedness and behavior. Pearce asserts that children who have attachment disorder usually exhibit deficits in almost all aspects of their development unlike the case with healthy children.
The most common characteristic of children who have attachment disorder is that they show an avoidance of intimacy and extreme attempts to control close relationships coercively using threatening, angry and menacing behaviors and/or seductive, charming or demanding behaviors. Owing the fact that many close relationships for the children have often led to the development of fear, abuse as well as hurt closeness becomes equated with distress or danger whereas intimacy becomes something to be resisted. The closer the caregiver of the child in question tries to get to the child or the more to love they show, the more threatening they become to the child. Nevertheless, a child suffering from attachment disorder is also uncomfortable with too much distance with his/her caregiver. According to DelCarmen-Wiggins, a vicious cycle often follows (102). In such cases, the child draws the caregiver closer through charming or demanding behaviors but distances the caregiver when he/she comes too close. He also draws the caregiver back in when he/she feels that the distance, both physical and emotional, begins to increase again. The child’s behavior serves several purposes namely:
- Punish and distance the caregiver
- Demand attention and a caregiver’s response to their needs
- Release pent-up frustration and anger
In some cases, children exhibit both avoidance of intimacy with caregivers and indiscriminate sociability. Study has shown that if a child with attachment disorder gets a new caregiver (replacing an old one), the child often compulsively re-enact their manipulative interactions with the new caregiver. Like all other normal children, such a child feels safe and reassured in association with people behaving in a predictable and expected manner. As they expect caregivers to be angry and threatening, rejecting or even undependable, they often behave in a manner that precipitates similar behavior with their new caregiver(s). This confirms their belief systems, which is not only reassuring but also perpetuating the cycle. Their belief systems also tell them that caregivers cannot be trusted or relied upon to understand them and meet their needs. Attachment-disordered children always make the conclusion that the only person they can depend on is themselves and the only way to get their needs met is to take matters into their own hands (Pearce, and Pezzot-Pearce 63). This results in the exhibition of controlling, manipulative behaviors and/receptive and deceitful behaviors arising from a preoccupation with accessibility to the provision of their various needs.
In most cases, the manipulative and controlling behaviors of children who are suffering from attachment disorder typically take the form of angry, aggressive and destructive behaviors, charming and seductive behaviors or even a combination of these. From their first days in life, the infants use affective displays such as crying and smiling to command the attention of their caregivers. Even when they are toddlers, attachment-disordered children continue to rely on affective displays to assure attention to their needs, punish and distance their caregivers and release pent-up anxiety/arousal (Flanagan 56).
Every child with the disorder seeks to communicate their thoughts, feelings and needs through their behavior and affective displays. In addition to smiling and crying, behaviors and affective displays used to communicate thoughts, feelings, as well as needs might include sulking, throwing tantrums, destructiveness, repetitive actions and clinginess to secure attention from their caregivers. As a result of experiencing neglectful care and because of their consequent mistrusts of others, attachment-disordered children often do not progress to the stage of articulating their thoughts, wishes, feelings and needs when they acquire the language to do so (DelCarmen-Wiggins, and Carter 22). They tend to consider controlling, manipulative behaviors and affective displays to be a more effective strategy. When caregivers ignore, admonish or even discipline aberrant behavior and affective displays, the attachment-disordered child feels rather misunderstood and their belief that caregivers are uncaring and unresponsive is again confirmed. They see punishment as arbitrary, cruel and rejecting. Their behavior reflects their expectation of caregiver unavailability, rejection and/or maltreatment, and the imposition of punishment serves to confirm these expectations.
Children with attachment disorder demonstrate an apparent lack of concern for maintaining close and loving relationships with their adult caregivers. Consequently, compared to other children they are relatively unconcerned about the impact of their behavior on their relationships with others. Rather, they develop a range of aberrant behaviors that assure accessibility to all their needs provision. In turn, caregivers can experience feelings of revulsion and loathing towards the child that impact negatively upon their care of the child an aspect that further reinforces the child’s negative attributions or beliefs about the relationship with the caregiver. This results to the breakdown of the child’s care arrangements, which may occur continually for a relatively long period.
It is generally rare for children to show any form of physical attraction for unfamiliar adults during their infancy stage. As infants, however, they may come into more contact with unfamiliar persons. In most cases, infants between 9-15 months become wary of strangers. Stranger anxiety begins to emerge around six months and peaks between 10 and 14 months (Scannapieco and Connell-Carrick 102). However, the extent to which stranger wariness is observed normally depends on a number of factors such as the infants past encounters with strangers, the circumstances under which the infant met the stranger, as well as the parent’s reaction to the stranger. For instance, a child who has spend most of his/her life with their parents and has met few strangers will likely be more scared that a child who has met many strangers and has an active social life. However, this is not the case with the development of a child suffering from attachment disorder. They react in a similar way i.e. with much contempt as well as anxiety to all individuals.
Separation anxiety occurs in all children especially when they are being separated from their primary caregivers. Separation anxiety occurs when the infant or toddler is fearful and experiences anxiety of being separated from the primary caregiver, usually the mother. Separation anxiety begins at 8-9 months and peaks at 14 months (William, and Cowling 96). Again, a child’s response to the separation from a caregiver depends on a number of factors e.g. the infant’s past experiences and the way the caregiver behaves towards them. In the case with attachment-disordered children, the child’s anxiety levels are always high due to the uncertainty of the caregiver’s behavior.
Conclusion
Caregivers should develop a good relationship with children/infants to ensure the healthy development of the child in question. According to the attachment theory, caregivers play a primary role in enhancing a good relationship between then and the infant/child. Children who receive poor care from their primary care givers suffer from attachment disorder. The disorder impairs the normal development of a child in many ways. For instance, the child develops an impulsive attitude towards all individuals. Additionally, the child experiences high levels of anxiety thus cannot interact properly with his/her immediate environment. As discussed above, infants as well as toddlers have different ways of expressing their thoughts and feelings an aspect that is essential in determining if a child is suffering from attachment disorder or not. The behavior of normal or rather healthy children differs from that of an attachment-disordered child.
Works Cited
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