“We are often the parents we would have wanted to have.” How the attachment is formed and why does it accompany us all life

“We are often the parents we would have wanted to have, not the ones that our children need”Says psychologist Oana Doruș. Behind every crisis of anger, of each refusal or every cry there is a story about the connection between the people who learn together how to approach. The attachment is the unseen language of this connection: the emotional alphabet we learn in the first years of life, without life.

What is attachment theory. Photo source: Shutterstock

“I work with children, teenagers and parents in the office, mainly through this lens of the attachment, who is very dear to me and I use with great openness and enthusiasm, because it seems to bring many results in the office”, explains Oana Doruș.

What does attachment mean: the first emotional map of life

The theory of attachment, she explains, starts from John Bowlby's observations, who showed that we are attached to people “In order to survive” and “To perpetuate our species”. In his vision, the connection with the main caretaker – the mother, the father or another stable adult – is a biological basis of safety.

Since then, the research has evolved enormously. “The attachment is built by physical and psychological safety, by tending and emotional validation, by support and encouragement for development ”. I like to see it, says the psychologist, as a solid fabric: “The threads of this fabric are the repeated and consistent interactions between the parent and the child, which in time create stable relational patterns.”

Oana Doruș uses the “M & M & Miga & Mare and our relationship” in the office, an experiential way of evaluating the parent-child relationship: “It is not a test of the attachment style, but a mirror of the quality of the relationship. We look at how the parent organizes their environment, how it is emotionally involved, how it protects and causes the child to grow up.”

In this type of evaluation, psychologists follow four major dimensions: structure, commitment, feeding and challenge.
“The structure is the skeleton of the relationship”explains Oana Doruș. “It is about how the parent offers limits, guidance, predictability – without rigidity. In the absence of this structure, the child gets to have control, and the roles are reversed. The care that the parent brings through the structure is translated by emotional and psychological”, Complete the specialist.

When the parent “does” too much and “is” too little

“What I want most is to help parents be in relation to the child, not just to do things for him.” says the psychologist, who adds: “Attachment and love are not about performance, but about presence. The relationship is the place where the child can rest, not just a list of activities.”

This seemingly subtle difference has major effects: “Some parents come and say they do everything for the child, but he still seems dissatisfied. The truth is that sometimes the child needs to be present, not busy. To be able to adjust emotionally, to keep him, to give him safety, not just resolutions.”

A relationship that is repaired by connecting, not by perfection

Oana Doruș explains that attachment relationships can be “recreated” and repaired even after difficult experiences: “In the case of adopted children, for example, the attachment relationship is built from scratch. But also in biological families there are breaks that can be healed. The child does not need a perfect parent, but one who can return to him, see him, repair him after a break.”

The psychologist also emphasizes the neurobiological dimension of attachment: “The way the parent cares for the child in the first year of life influences the development of his brain. He teaches him how to adjust emotionally and how to be with others. That's why we say that attachment follows us all our life, it is our first emotional alphabet.”

In turn, Luminița Tăbăran, psychologist, explains that the attachment style is formed in early childhood by the way the child is cared for, both physically and emotionally.

“If the attachment person – the one who takes care of him – is warm, loving, protective and responds to the real needs of the child, the style of attachment is a secure one, in which the little one feels safe. But when the person who cares for him has an inconsistent, delayed or absent, the style of attachment, if an attachment is an anxious one. as well as avoidant ”, explains the specialist.

According to Luminița Tăbăran, the type of attachment formed in the first years of life determines the way of relationship throughout life, influencing the adult's behavior in love, work or friendship relationships.

“It is important to know how to react when the child has a tantrum,” she adds. “These crises must be managed with calm, warmth and understanding. The child needs to understand the consequences of his actions, that there are limits for safety, but also that the parent is near him, understands his emotion and validates,” Complete the specialist.

How to see attachment to adult life

What we learn in childhood later becomes a relational reflex. “Each of us has an internal map about how a safe or risky relationship looks. If we have grown with predictability and validation, we can explore the world and love without fear. If we have grown with fear and rejection, we seek control or withdrawal,” Complete Oana Doruș.

For many adults, therapy means just returning to this initial map. “The attachment is not a stage, it is an emotional database. The way we respond today to stress, love, abandon, criticism – are all echoes of how we were held in their arms, listened to or left alone in childhood,” she continues.

At the same time, Oana Doruș cites a contemporary author in the field of development psychology, which describes the parent as “The response of his child, his place of rest, the safety anchor and the shield in a wounded world, The reason why he can go further and his source of good and peace ”. When I read that, “I realized how often I see parents looking for solutions and strategies, but forgetting to be simply in relation to their child.”