Attachment
50 articles
Parent–Child Games to Strengthen Connection
The "quality time" idea has been turned into a guilt-trip about elaborate craft projects, themed dinners, and "intentional parenting." It needn't be....
The Role of Secure Attachment in Building Resilience
A 14-month-old at the park crawls 10 feet from your blanket, looks back, sees your face, and keeps going. A few minutes later they fall, scrape a knee...
How to Use Routines to Strengthen Parent-Child Bonds
Ask a 30-year-old what they remember about their childhood and you will rarely get the trip to Disney. You will get the specific song their father san...
Neglectful Parenting and Its Effects
Of the four parenting styles described in the developmental literature, neglectful — sometimes called uninvolved — is the one with the worst track rec...
The Father's Role in Attachment Formation
Traditional attachment research focused on mother-infant attachment, creating the impression that the father-child relationship was secondary or less...
Family as a Source of Emotional Safety
"Emotional safety" can sound abstract, but it's one of the most measurable variables in child development. John Bowlby's attachment theory, Mary Ainsw...
The Role of Grandparents in a Child's Life
Grandparents occupy a position in children's lives that neither parents nor teachers nor friends can quite replicate. They have enough relational auth...
Emotional Bonding Between Father and Child in Everyday Routines
Fathers' bonding with their children often receives less attention than mothers', partly because of a persistent cultural assumption that attachment d...
Emotional Development in Children 0–5: A Parent's Guide
Emotional development is one of the most important — and often most misunderstood — aspects of early childhood. From a newborn's first cries to a five...
Why Infants Need Emotional Support
The developmental science of early childhood is unambiguous on one point: emotional support is not a luxury for infants. It is a biological requiremen...
Why Early Emotional Support Matters
The emotional support your child receives in their first five years isn't just about making them feel better in the moment—it's building the foundatio...
The Role of Physical Contact in an Infant's Emotional Development
"Are you spoiling her by holding her so much?" New parents hear this from well-meaning relatives and absorb the worry. Developmental science is unusua...
Parental Stress and Its Impact on the Child
Most parents assume their stress stays inside their own head. It doesn't. By six months, infants reliably show physiological changes in response to a...
The One-Year Crisis: Psychological Explanations
The word "crisis" sounds alarming, but in developmental psychology it means something more like "turning point." Old strategies stop working because t...
How to Help a Child Navigate the One-Year Developmental Crisis
Somewhere between 12 and 18 months, your easy baby becomes an opinionated, unpredictable small person who wants to do everything themselves and also w...
Maternal Emotional Health as a Factor in Child Development
A mother's mental health and her child's development are tied together at the level of biology, behaviour, and relationship. Decades of research — inc...
The Emotional World of Learning to Walk
The first steps look like a celebration moment in baby books. The reality is messier — a few weeks of attempts, falls, frustration, and (often) terrib...
How Emotional Bonding Between Mother and Newborn Develops
The "magical bonding moment" at birth is one of the most damaging stories told to new mothers. About a third of women describe their first feeling tow...
When Your Child Has a Favorite Caregiver
Most kids in daycare end up with a favorite — Miss Jennifer, Mr. David, the one whose name shows up at every dinner. That bond is healthy and developm...
Saying Goodbye to a Daycare: Emotional Considerations
Leaving a daycare your child loved — for a move, a school transition, or a change in care arrangements — is a real ending. By the time a child has bee...
Comfort Objects: Should Children Bring Them to Daycare
A bit of fabric that smells like home is one of the cheapest and most effective tools for daycare adjustment. Donald Winnicott called these "transitio...
How a Good Caregiver Supports Emotional Development
A good carer is far more than a logistician. The hundreds of small interactions they have with your child each week — the response to a fall, the help...
The Role of the Caregiver in a Child's Adaptation
You can choose the right setting, prepare your child meticulously at home, and run a beautiful morning routine — and still have a hard adjustment if t...
The Role of the Caregiver in a Child's Adaptation
A child's nursery experience is shaped almost entirely by their relationship with their key person — the warm or cold, present or distracted adult who...