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Attachment Theory and Its Influence on Academic and Social Functioning

A primary theoretical construct informing TI practice is attachment theory, a developmental model describing the role of interpersonal connectedness in the formation of integrated neurological functioning, leading to the capacity to effectively manage life’s anxieties so that the developing person can engage in the various tasks or demands presented by the environment (Bowlby, 1988; Bowlby & Golding, 2007; Karen, 1990; Siegel, 2012). Here, we are addressing how the child’s attachment relationships are key to enabling them to academically engage and emotionally and behaviorally self-regulate (Geddes, 2006; Massachusetts Advocates for Children, 2013; Masten & Obradovic, 2006; Morton, 2018).

Over the past 20 years, elements of attachment theory have experienced a resurgence of interest as advancements in neurobiology have provided empirical evidence of the physiological impact of relationships. First, we can see physiological evidence that secure, emotionally attuned, and trustworthy relationships do build neurostructures advancing brain functioning required for psychosocial growth. Likewise, insecure, emotionally misattuned and inconsistent relational fidelity undermine the formation of neurostructures required for cognitive functioning and self-regulation, leading to added challenges throughout the lifespan (Cozolino, 2014; Siegel, 2012; van der Kolk, 2014).

They are mirrored in Erikson’s developmental model, but in a nutshell, attachment theory’s primary premises are quite simple (Bowlby, 1969):

• We all experience anxiety. Life is hard and will present us with numerous expected and unexpected challenges (stressors), some more annoying than hard, and others downright scary, traumatic, and unfair.
• To manage this anxiety, we need consistent attachment during our first 18 years of life. All children need what developmental theorists call “good-enough parenting” (as explained below) from adults who consistently see, value, care for, and mentor them throughout the first 18 years of life (Karen, 1990; Winnicott, 1990). When we are loved (being seen and mentored) by a caring community, our innate ability to grow and thrive unfolds.
  • In the absence of good-enough care, brain development stalls, negative neurological networks (for example, “Life is always unfair” or “I am not lovable”) take hold and dominate, and positive neurological networks (such as “Life is good on most days” or “I am deeply loved”) fail to take hold. This lack of neural integration sets off a cascade of developmental consequences unique to each person and their circumstances.
• If we get good-enough attachment, we are better able to handle life’s anxieties. When we have consistent attunement and mentoring, we build the internal neurostructures required to emotionally and cognitively meet the both-and of life’s challenges without being overwhelmed by anxiety. We develop confidence in our abilities to do life, what is often referred to recently as “grit” (Duckworth, 2016). Through firsthand experience, we know we are loved—we have worth, even though we, and the persons who love us, are not perfect. We learn we can reach out for help as needed, even as we are learning how to use our internal and external resources to meet day-to-day expectations.
  • Attachment theorists call this confidence. It takes confidence in the goodness of self, others, and the world despite the imperfections and the bad. It takes confidence in our own ability to figure it out even though we may often get it wrong. It takes confidence to reach out for help, knowing those persons may or may not be able to respond as we ideally desire.
  • And this confidence (built by consistent love and care) is what enables us to manage anxiety, whether it is the minor anxiety of managing day-to-day tasks or surges of anxiety that accompany larger stressors and traumatic events.
  • In the absence of good-enough attachment, we do not have the neurostructures to emotionally and cognitively self-regulate and learn. We know through firsthand experience to doubt our worth and the trustworthiness of others. We lack the confidence in ourselves to meet the daily challenges of life, leading to inhibited action, self-doubt, and oversensitivity to criticism. We lack confidence in others truly caring about us, and become overly sensitive to any perceived or actual slight. We do not feel safe in the world; we do not feel safe in our own skin. We learn all sorts of ways to protect ourselves, such as curbing or muting our will or drive to be loved, to be creative, to set desired goals as protection against personal failure, rejection, and shame. We cannot manage the anxiety of day-to-day demands, let alone major stressful or adverse events.
  • The cumulative effect of these negative neural networks dominating our psychosocial and cognitive functioning over the course of the lifespan manifest in all sorts of challenges observed in the classroom, as we will examine in Chapter 4.
  • In adulthood, these challenges are most apparent in struggles in our intimate, close relationships, or adult living skills related to self-care and social responsibilities such as economic sustainability and honoring social contracts (i.e., laws).

Good-Enough Parenting as Attunement and Mentoring

Figures 2.2 through 2.4 provide an outline summary of the foundational elements of attachment theory, including John Bowlby’s original hypothesis, as well as the work of Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main, who worked with Bowlby to flesh out basic styles of what secure and insecure attachment from parents look like and their effects on children. In summary, Bowlby described securely attached parents as caretakers who were able to offer care in just the right dose—in style and consistency—according to the current needs and biological wiring of the child, helping the child create internal working models (neural networks or schemas) of the world based on the internalization of that care (Bowlby, 1969, 1976, 1980). In other words, not all children need love and care expressed in the same manner. Good-enough parents, a term coined by Winnicott (1990), are able to bend and flex according to the needs of their child in the process of offering consistent emotional attunement and mentoring. And no parent is perfect—nor should they be. But the limits of the parents must not exceed the tipping point required of that child to internalize that they are loved and cared about, and can safely trust and rest into that attachment relationship despite its imperfections; that’s good-enough.

Attachment Theory Overview

Figure 2.2: John Bowlby (1988): Attachment Theory Propositions, Function, and Attachment Behavior Definition

Figure 2.2

Figure 2.3: John Bowlby (1988): Six Patterns of Attachment Behaviors

Bowlby asserts that the more a parent displays the positive traits in the following six patterns, the more likely the child will securely attach. The more a parent displays the negative attributes of these six patterns, the more likely the child will not securely attach.

Figure 2.3

Figure 2.4: Child and Adult Attachment Styles

Mary Ainsworth (2015) observed four distinct attachment patterns children display in relationship to their primary attachment figures. Mary Main (Hamilton, 2000; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985) observed four distinct adult attachment patterns that parents display towards their children. Together, they discovered a correlation between the way a child attached and the style of attachment that the child’s parents provided that child. An adult attachment style does not always “produce” the corresponding child attachment style, but they discovered that a significant correlation does exist. Use the Child Attachment Styles to identify traits in yourself as a child; use the Adult Attachment Styles to identify traits in yourself as an adult, whether bonding with another adult or as a parent caring for a child.

Figure 2.4

Other attachment-focused theorists have added to our understanding of what “good-enough” means—and again, it is not about perfection or protecting children from all relational stress or disappointment. In fact, it requires (a reasonable dose of) the exact opposite. Return to Erikson’s notes again (Figure 2.1 above). As we discussed, notice how all of life is about developing internal strengths despite challenge, despite the imperfections of self and others, despite our own internal fears, hangups, and insecurities.

Our attachment relationships with children are all about helping emerging adults deal with the reality that life is hard and unfair from a foundation of relational safety—knowing that they are loved, they matter, and they have the internal resources (neural networks affirming worth and competence) and external resources (the community) to do this thing called life. Our attachment relationships with children are all about helping emerging adults deal with the reality that life is hard and unfair from a foundation of relational safety—knowing that they are loved, they matter, and they have the internal resources (neural networks affirming worth and competence) and external resources (the community) to do this thing called life. The growing child encounters this challenge on a daily basis from the moment they are born. Life didn’t play fair when their skull was nearly crushed during birth, or they were hit with the full force of gravity, cold, and air entering their lungs for the first time. Life was scary and unpredictable whenever their stomach hurt or they were pricked with a needle or got a fever. And don’t even get a toddler started on how unfair life is that they cannot control nearly anything despite the fact that they can now walk and talk!

These are expected “breaks” or “misses,” as theorists call them, that are part of being alive, and must be encountered. Often, such events are no one’s fault: it is just life being life. And they are necessary opportunities for offering the child attachment-based attuned and mentoring responses (verbal or non-verbal) that say, “I know it hurts,” or “I know it’s unfair, but I’m here with you and together we will see this through,” or “You’ve got this thing; let me know if you need my help, as I’m right here with you.”

For differing reasons, a parent should not be able to prevent every physical or emotional discomfort of a child on a daily basis. But the good-enough parent who is aware of the slight—the relationship “miss,” the “break” in the attunement process—cycles back to acknowledge the child’s experience and offers a situation-appropriate response. This process of “break and repair” is what builds trust; it is the hallmark of good-enough parenting. The parent is not expected to repair all breaks—that is unrealistic. But good-enough parents and strong attachment-based care protects children from unnecessary, hurtful breaks where they can, and provide consistent enough repairs at a “good-enough” frequency, appropriate for that situation. This ability to prevent unnecessary and hurtful breaks past a tipping point in frequency and intensity, and to attune and mentor, comes from parents whose own neural integration is such that they can stand in a de-centered place; they can put their own needs and reactions aside, see the developmental needs of the child, and then respond accordingly. They are securely attached adults.

When the parent (or teacher) says, “I know I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry. I was angry and I took it out on you,” or “I know you are angry with me, but no, you can’t have or do x, y, or z,” a multitude of good processes are co-occurring. First, the child receives affirmation that they are seen and cared about by the adult. Second, they experience the adult’s ability to own their faults or limitations, if that was the case. This is reflecting the adult’s confidence that they can tolerate not being perfect. Instead, they can focus on doing it better the next time (when they are the ones who caused an unnecessary or hurtful “break”), while empathically hanging out with the child’s experience as the child summons the confidence to muddle through the “break” on the way to “repair.” Meanwhile, when the child has been hurt (whether by parental accident or reactivity, or by appropriate limit-setting), and the parent circles back to repair the actual or perceived “break,” the child learns that their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs are important, even though it may not mean they can or should necessarily get what they want.

The confidence resulting from good-enough attachment is not arrogance or naive optimism. It is a sense of faith in yourself, an ability to tolerate being wrong without that meaning you are a total failure and unworthy human being. It also reflects the ability to tolerate the inevitable limits and failings of those around us without minimizing their failings or totally disregarding them because of it. It allows us to take an honest inventory of ourselves and others. It gives us the ability to say, “That was wrong and it hurt; now, how can we repair this?”

This alludes to the developmental concept of whole, integrated relating, often referred to as “splitting versus whole-object” relating (Berardi, 2015; Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1973; Rubens, 1996; Winnicott, 1990). Developmental theorists surmise that you and I work through cognitive stages where we see the world as either/or, right/wrong, good/bad, when in fact life is all of that and more. I have good parts and not-so-good parts to my way of being in the world. Those I love are the same. Good-enough attachment helps me experience the good and the bad in myself and the ones I love, and ride the wave—the hard work—of relationship. When I am not able to hold those two in tension, it may prevent me from admitting I am wrong, or another person is wrong. It may make me unable to  repair the break when I am wrong, or lead me to refuse repair by others who have wronged me. It may lead me to ignore or make excuses for others who have hurt me, or to overly ruminate about every wrong committed against me, whether the other person takes appropriate ownership or not. Discernment regarding how to honor my boundaries or those of others becomes distorted and confused. This will be important for us to revisit when we talk about trauma-informed discipline policies as embodying this “both-and.”

Good-enough attachment creates a foundation for us to tolerate ambiguity, imperfection, and uncertainty in self, others, and the world around us while we risk embarking on new relational, intellectual, and physical challenges. Good-enough attachment creates a foundation for us to tolerate ambiguity, imperfection, and uncertainty in self, others, and the world around us while we risk embarking on new relational, intellectual, and physical challenges. This directly relates to the key challenges of Erikson’s Industry and Inferiority stage that dominates a child’s school years. Understanding the lack of good-enough attachment, and the resulting undeveloped and unintegrated neural structures, helps us understand children who display little frustration tolerance, low anger thresholds, and fear of failure that locks them into oppressive self-imposed pursuit of perfection or leads them to give up before even trying. It helps us understand students who lead with indifference, disrespect, and outright violence. The consequences of chronic misattunement are real and profound, and will be illustrated more in Chapter 4.

But most comforting is the realization that in imperfection, we truly learn what love, acceptance, and trust mean when we circle back and repair the places where we broke trustworthiness. Among attachment-focused mental health practitioners, we use a metaphor borrowed from how steel rods are fabricated: Through a process of melding together (attachment), breaking apart (break or miss), and then melding together again (repair), the fibers holding it together become stronger. So it is with relationships: We build bonds of deeper love and trust as we inevitably cycle from processes of deep, resonant connection to moments of relational “misses” or “breaks” and then back to “repairing” those breaks, returning to a state of attunement.

Another element to consider is our need and ability to form strong relational bonds with more than one or two caretakers. We’ve learned a lot about what makes today’s students so vulnerable, and it is not merely because of parental struggle. Many systems-based therapists and sociologists believe it is because families in general are more challenged and isolated, and hence more vulnerable, than at any time throughout history. While it is beyond the scope of this text to elaborate on these issues, suffice it to say that parents need our empathy and support even while we are acutely aware that much student stress is originating in the home. There are reasons why parents are dysregulated, and they are in need of a trauma-informed approach as well. We will address this further in Chapter 11.

We can’t merely wish or demand that parents become the attachment figures their children need. When our students come to school with marginal abilities to learn and self-regulate, we can’t just expect them to pull it together and get with the program. We are looking at an entire society suffering the effects of disconnection and dysregulation.

To avoid sending us down the hole of depression and hopelessness here and again in Chapter 4 (how dysregulation impacts schools), there is actually some good news and the reason for a Chapter 4 and 5 (best practices in response) preview: Attachment theory and empirical evidence gleaned from neurobiology illustrate that when we provide our students with attunement and mentoring—when we offer our students good-enough attachment—we can help them repair neurostructures battered by unmitigated stress and trauma. We can help them repair developmental injuries that are preventing academic and social-behavioral success at school. It takes a school community village, and it can be done.

Figure 2.5: Daniel Siegel’s Domains of Neural Integration (Siegel, 2012, Ch. 14; 2007)

The following definitions use many direct quotes from Siegel’s articulation of each domain (Siegel, 2007, 2012). The remaining descriptions and examples are from Berardi, A. (2013). GCEP 510: Human Growth & Development, Graduate School of Counseling, George Fox University, Portland, OR. Develop your own examples with and for your students.

Goal of Neural Integration: Mindfulness

Engaged, self-aware self-attunement allowing a more receptive, integrated state to engage with self and others in life-affirming resonance. Being “one’s own best friend” allows full and receptive relationships with others. Crucial to neural integration and caring, compassionate, stable, and effective communities.

A Way to Engage with Siegel’s Nine Neural Networks:

Mindfulness, rather than disconnection and dysregulation, reflects integrated neural network functioning. It’s a state of health we strengthen through attunement and mentoring over time as we grow in wisdom. (Can you hear Erikson?) We will use this chart in future sections to identify ways to strengthen student neural networks. Here is a way you can engage now to inspire insight, empathy, and further growth:

1. Use each network to identify strengths and positive neural networks to celebrate and nurture.
2. Use each network to identify thoughts, feelings, sensations, or behaviors you may have when stressed.
3. Design attunement and mentoring exercises to strengthen specific domains.
4. For further reading, refer to Siegel and Bryson’s Whole Brain Child (2012).

Figure 2.5

Case Example: Developmental Theory Application

The following fictional case example provides a backdrop to the application of the concepts discussed in this chapter. In many ways, Charlotte has a lot in common with all of us, in that life has dealt her unfair traumatic events. Some of those events represent the limits of her adult caretakers, while others are no one’s fault—it’s just life being terribly unfair. This example illustrates that a trauma-informed approach starts with the understanding that life is hard and unfair for all of us in various ways, and that wrapping ourselves around each other is what builds strong and resilient minds and bodies capable of meeting various developmental challenges throughout the lifespan. TISP is inviting schools to more intentionally embrace their role as part of a growing child’s attachment network not only to promote academic and social-emotional success in school, but to increase the child’s capacity to grow and thrive in the face of adversity throughout the course of their life.

The Case of Charlotte

Charlotte is a 10-year-old fourth-grade student of African American descent, residing in a culturally diverse large city in the upper Midwest United States. When she was seven, her parents divorced, and when she was nine, her mother died of cancer. She currently resides with her father and his parents.

Charlotte’s academic record reveals that her performance has fluctuated: at times she easily displayed mastery/high proficiency, but during certain grading periods in first and third grade she barely met benchmark standards in many subject areas. She has never displayed socially disruptive behaviors, but has displayed socially avoidant traits in seasons co-occurring with her decreased academic functioning. At the most recent parent-teacher conference, Charlotte’s father was informed that his daughter was being bullied by a group of girls and she appeared more quiet and withdrawn of late.

Charlotte’s Relational Networks

Let’s imagine that Charlotte’s parents were able to provide good-enough parenting in substance, consistency, and time: They understood their role as parents, investing in the emotional and physical well-being of their child, attuning to her and mentoring her on a daily basis so someday Charlotte could launch and embark on her own life course. Their relational stance toward Charlotte communicated genuine love, interest, and celebration in her day-to-day life encounters, communicating a sense of wise knowing, and emotional and physical availability. They did not ignore her, withhold connection, or shame or minimize Charlotte for her needs, as might a parent with what attachment theorists call a dismissive attachment style (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 2015; Karen, 1990). Nor did they manipulate Charlotte to boost their own self-worth, or soothe their own fears, loneliness, and insecurities congruent with what is often called a preoccupied attachment style (Ainsworth, et al, 2015; Karen, 1990). Charlotte knew that her parents were honest with her and available for help, whether the assistance needed was cognitive processing, emotional attunement, or physical support. She was not left to drown in managing life challenges beyond her ability, nor protected from the hard work of learning how to manage age-appropriate expectations. This relational stance on the part of her mom and dad may have influenced their ability to maintain a united parenting partnership, attuning to their child’s distress as they divorced and settled into new routines.

When Charlotte’s mother became ill and the family absorbed her impending death, let’s imagine that Charlotte’s extended kinship network—her relatives, family friends, and faith community—wrapped themselves around Charlotte and her parents as best they knew how. Charlotte would have experienced caring others inviting her to talk as she wanted, being available to answer her questions, or just providing a shoulder to cry on or a place to escape into something fun. She would have seen her mom and dad struggling, especially her mom as she dealt with pain, fear, and anguish at having to say goodbye to her life and to her baby girl. Her mom would have modeled that it is OK to grieve. She likely would have learned how her community made sense of suffering, the temporality of life, and what death ultimately means. These constructs would have been directly and indirectly communicated as Charlotte watched and listened to the adults around her, giving her small anchors for making sense of what was happening—one of the keys to coping, as we will explore in greater detail in Chapter 3.

Summary Observations

Good-enough parenting does not mean 100% protection from parental failings or missteps, or stressors and traumas that bombard a family through no fault of its own. Charlotte has experienced two significant and overwhelming traumas—her parents’ divorce, and the illness and death of her mother. These are devastating adverse events that have the potential to undermine the foundation a growing child needs to survive and thrive.

What this imaginary case illustrates is a child who may be highly resilient due to consistent attachment relationships she’s experienced over the course of her young life, promoting integrated neural networks capable of helping her through seasons of hardship and trauma. Her academic struggles and her social withdrawal would be logical and expected, as would additional signs of distress.

But risk and danger lurk: Charlotte needs more than just attunement and mentoring from her kinship network. She needs to be firmly embedded in a community of care. School is a vital part of that community. Charlotte needs us to see the fear, confusion, and pain that is hijacking her life on a daily basis for a season, and will resurface every now and then as each age and stage forces her to make sense, yet again, of the traumas years prior.

Our imaginary Charlotte does live within a caring community of extended kinship networks. She has attentive and caring relatives who walked with her through her parents’ divorce and her mother’s death. They will be mothering forces in her life as she continues to grow. But Charlotte is still vulnerable. Like a new shoot sprouting from the ground when it is still too cold to survive, she comes to school each day raw and vulnerable on the inside, needing school to continue the support she is receiving at home. She needs attunement and mentoring from the adults charged with her care throughout the school day, throughout the education process. In other words, educators need to be good-enough attachment figures not just because of the length of time Charlotte spends at school each day, but because her learning process also occurs within the context of relationship (Palmer, 1993).

Right now, Charlotte is showing signs of distress. Her grades are lower once again, her tendency to withdraw is back, and this, in part, may be making her a more susceptible target for bullying. Attunement and mentoring will help us stop the bullying—for both Charlotte’s and the other students’ well-being. Attunement and mentoring-based school practices, as we will outline in later chapters, will also reinforce the emotional support Charlotte is receiving at home. This increases her chances of metabolizing these losses in a way that leaves her more resilient rather than developmentally undermined in a way that tumbles and intensifies as she develops.

What happens when school does not attune to the Charlottes of the world, but merely becomes a place where demands are placed on them in a sea of chaotic, overstimulating, noise and volatile energy? And what about students who do not receive good-enough attunement and mentoring at home, with the safety nets of safe and available extended kinship networks? Sadly, this is the reality for many students as we will explore in Chapters 3 and 4. These questions are what inspires TISP, grounded in the knowledge and skills of attunement and mentoring—good attachment—as basic to cognitive and social-emotional growth for all students.

A Look Forward

In this chapter, we detailed basic elements of healthy growth and development. We started by naming the givens—that life is full of challenge and hardship, and if we are to grow strong and resilient, we need consistent attunement and mentoring throughout the lifespan, but most crucially during the first 18 years of life.

This revisiting of the basics sets the stage to help us understand what unfolds when a developing person is overrun by stressors, either because the child’s relational environment cannot provide good-enough attachment, or because the stressors are too many and/or too severe. In Chapter 3 we will apply additional trauma-informed conceptual elements to identify what happens when a child is not growing up in a secure-enough relational environment, preventing foundational support for the development of integrated neural functioning. In Chapter 4, we will zoom in on what dysregulated neural functioning looks like in the classroom—how it displays in students, educators, and the larger community as it impacts school viability and functioning.

Resources for Further Reading

• The National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Offers a wide range of resources, including research summaries.
• Parenting Counts. Attachment and trauma-informed resources.
• Center on the Developing Child—Harvard University. A rich variety of research summaries and resources.
• Becoming Attached. Atlantic Monthly article providing an overview of attachment theory.
• Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D.—Attachment: The First Core Strength. A detailed description of the attachment bond.