CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Child Development Theory

Child Development Theory

Introduction

The theoretical approach to parent-child relationships that has generated the most extensive research, social policy changes, and controversy is attachment theory. At the core of attachment theory is the premise that early relationships are critical for a child's development (Bowlby, 1969). First articulated in the 1950s by London psychiatrist John Bowlby, the normative components of attachment theory integrate principles from fields as diverse as psychoanalysis, ethology, and cognitive science.

This paper discusses John Bowlby's theory of attachment in relation to child's development Children change in somewhat predictable but highly individualized ways. Child development theories identify discrete periods within childhood.

Bowlby's Theory and Child Development

The attachment system functions to automatically motivate an infant to seek physical proximity to an attachment figure in times of threat—to use the attachment figure as a haven of safety. Threats that activate the attachment system may be internal, such as illness or fatigue, or external, such as darkness or an approaching animal (Bowlby, 1969). Many fears are thought to be based on the presence of one or more biologically based natural clues to danger, such as being alone, strangeness, rapid approach, and sudden changes in stimulation. The activation of the attachment system is terminated either by the elimination of the threat or through proximity to the caregiver—achieved through social signals and behaviors as superficially diverse as crying, smiling, vocalizing, approaching, following, and clinging (Bowlby, 1969).

The attachment system works in conjunction with several other biologically based control systems. In times of threat, attachment is activated simultaneously with the fear system, which motivates the individual to flee from the source of alarm. Because the attachment and fear systems both function in the service of immediate survival, their activation typically takes priority over other behavioral systems in times of threat. However, in the absence of threat, activation of the attachment and fear systems is typically replaced by activation of the exploration and affiliation systems (Bowlby, 1969). Exploration and affiliation are crucial to longterm survival because they allow the infant to learn about and engage in the physical and social environments. Under these nonthreatening circumstances, the infant uses the attachment figure as a secure base for discovering the world—keeping the attachment figure nearby lest threat reemerge. Under optimal circumstances, an infant achieves balance between attachment/fear and exploration/affiliation—focused inflexibly neither on threat nor away from it (Bowlby, 1969).

Because protection offered by adults is indispensable for infant survival, almost all infants become attached to their primary caregiver—even when that caregiver is maltreating. The process of forming an attachment typically follows four general phases. Initially, infants nonpreferentially send out social signals such as crying and smiling that elicit care from different adults. Then, in the second or third month of life, infants begin to discriminate caregivers and to develop differential expectations related to the consistency, contingency, and appropriateness of care that they receive. Even in the earliest weeks of infancy, social stimuli are perceived as unique and significant, and it is toward these stimuli that infants direct their ...