Health and social care - Bonding and attachment - Why are attachment and bonding felt to be important developmental processes?

Sarah Harland

Health and social care

Bonding and attachment

Why are attachment and bonding felt to be important developmental processes?

Attachment and bonding are felt to be important developmental processes because bonding and attachment are both stages of human development, which are essential to a child’s stable development as they grow.

Babies bond in many different ways, mainly through touch and smell. Bonding is the sense of connection between parents/main carer and the infant.

Bonding is the basic link of trust between an infant and it’s main carer, which is usually the mother. Successful bonding results in an infant developing basic trust in others. While bonding is about trust, attachment is about affection. The quality of an infant’s initial attachment is really important because it influences some of the important parts of development. Attachment and bonding play a vital role in all of the following:

Maintaining the bonds of trust.
Attaining full physical, intellectual, emotional and social potential.
Acquiring a conscience.
Developing relationships with others identity and self-esteem.
Learning about feelings.
Language development.

To help a child’s development through attachment and bonding you could do things such as holding, talking, singing, rocking and cuddling as well as numerous other nurturing interactions. You could also

Provide an infant with plenty of face-to-face interaction. Using different facial expressions will help to improve an infant’s emotional development.
Gentle kissing or stroking of an infants cheeks, shoulders, hands and fingers will help to improve ...

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Maintaining the bonds of trust.
Attaining full physical, intellectual, emotional and social potential.
Acquiring a conscience.
Developing relationships with others identity and self-esteem.
Learning about feelings.
Language development.

Provide an infant with plenty of face-to-face interaction. Using different facial expressions will help to improve an infant’s emotional development.
Gentle kissing or stroking of an infants cheeks, shoulders, hands and fingers will help to improve an infant’s emotional development and improve their sensory awareness.
Talking and singing to an infant will help to strengthen the bond between the infant and the main carer whilst the infant’s language is improving.
Playing with an infant with toys will help an infant to develop more advanced social skills.

Without bonding and attachment an infant may have delayed development or could be diagnosed with an attachment disorder.

Attachment at different ages.

In the first month of life infants experience themselves as one with the surrounding environment. The basic development task is for an infant to achieve a physiological balance and rhythm. This balance prepares the infant for further attachment and bonding.

From 2 to 6 months an infants experience shifts from feeling merged with her environment to feeling one with the parent. There now appear a number of signs of an infant developing attachment with its main carer. The infant will smile; make eye contact with the main carers face. At 6 months an attaching infant will show a full range of emotions and will be responsive to parental wooing.

By 6 or 7 months an infant will usually have begun to experience stranger anxiety. Stranger anxiety testifies to the strength of an infant’s attachment to their main carer. It is this attachment that defines everyone else as strangers. Without an attachment there are no strangers, everyone is of equal emotional importance or unimportance. When there are strangers around an infant checks in with the main carer for reassurance. Over the next 2 or 3 months stranger anxiety intensifies before fading into separation anxiety.

Separation anxiety usually begins at 9 to 10 months and peaks between 12 and 15 months. Separation anxiety can last until somewhere between 24 and 36 months. Separation anxiety emerges from an infants growing awareness of being apart from their main carer. Infants react differently to separation. Some infants cry in protest and cling to the main carer, while others withdraw from the world until the main carer returns, some infants also protest by becoming angry and aggressive. These reactions prove that attachment has taken place.