5 ways to support children with anxious attachments - Dandelion Training & Development

Anxious Attachment Styles

An anxious attachment style refers to a child who has developed a belief that they cannot trust themselves, and are reliant on key people in their lives to help them. The child (or later adult) has a strong belief that they will be rejected or abandoned, and has a high level of need for validation and reassurance. Children with anxious attachments are less confident to explore and experience higher levels of distress when separated from carers. This means that as they get older they can access limited opportunities as without the consistent reassurance of those around them they do not believe that they can do things.

A parent who develops an insecure-anxious attachment style with their child may:

Use inconsistent parenting
Respond sometimes, and other times be distracted or not present
Can often find themselves being not fully present or distracted, whether by their own feelings or other factors
The parent doubts themselves, and could describe themselves as ‘all over the place’
Not responsive or attuned to the child’s needs
Avoiding picking up a baby when crying so as not to ‘spoil’ them
Parents who are emotionally unavailable
Overprotective but can also be distant and preoccupied
Dependent on children to meet their own needs, needing reassurance from the child
Hovering or helicopter parenting style

Traits of children with an anxious attachment can include:

Struggle when parents leave, thinking they are abandoned
Emotional
Anxious
Clingy
Have low self-esteem
Seek constant reassurance
Are fearful of losing their relationship
Feeling that they cannot cope without someone helping them
Less independent
Jealous or possessive
Difficulty regulating and controlling negative emotions
Learn to up-regulate to get attention e.g. high levels of distress, screaming

Supporting children

To support children with anxious attachment styles, we can consider:

Create consistency and predictability – Anxious attachments are created through inconsistency, whether this is through physical or emotional presence. Developing a predictable and consistent daily routine in which the child can be sure of what is happening next, along with developing core predictable reactions to situations allows the child to begin to trust that they are safe and can cope. Consistent routines and responses allow children’s brains to feel safe as they always know what is coming next.
Be responsive – When a child has an anxious attachment they have experienced inconsistent responses, whereby at times, they have felt that they are required to ‘upregulate’ their behaviours to gain parental support. This can be from behaviours such as, crying, screaming, lashing out or intruding in personal space in order to draw a parent to them to gain reassurance. Developing a greater awareness of children’s behaviours and cues to their vulnerability can allow us to be more responsive and support them to navigate obstacles so that they build confidence in their connections as well as themselves. This can include having consistent rules and boundaries, responding consistently and recognising when they need emotional support or encouragement to try things.
Encourage exploration and curiosity – Children with anxious attachments are often scared to try things, believing that they need an adult to support them to do things. This can lead to limited opportunities. Supporting children with encouragement to explore new things and be more curious rather than scared allows children to develop greater internal trust. This can mean that we need to first regulate our own feelings of anxiety, to allow us to encourage children to be more curious about things that they might enjoy and give them a go.
Develop emotional literacy – Children with anxious attachments often struggle to gauge their feelings, feeling overwhelmed with their emotions very quickly. Supporting children to develop the language to express their feelings, as well as the self-awareness to understand what they are feeling, can then help them develop the skills to respond to these. This requires direct emotional literacy support, as well as effective role modelling from adults – seeing us express our feelings with words and model how we respond to them to regulate ourselves.
Role model – Children with anxious attachments need strong role modelling to support them to develop coping skills, understand how to respond to their own needs, as well as see how to navigate conflict and challenges constructively. This includes seeing adults take responsibility for their own behaviours, apologise and make changes, as well as repair and reconnect after conflict or disagreements to support them to understand that when things go wrong we can put them right and this does not mean that we will be abandoned. In addition, it is vital that children learn how to take responsibility when things go wrong, by watching adults do the same things.

Want to learn more?

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Further help

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