Secure Attachment: The Strength Of A Healthy Bond

Developing a secure attachment protects the mental health of the little ones. In fact, it helps them not to have to face different issues that might arise in their future relationships due to the presence of an unhealthy bond during their childhood. However, are parents prepared to foster this type of attachment?

When we talk about attachment, we always focus on the children. This is why today we will take parents as protagonists. These very important figures on whom we sometimes reject all the faults when they themselves have had their own experiences and they may never have thought of acting in any other way.

We believe it is  natural for parents to educate children as they were educated themselves,  or using some other extreme. In any case, they do so by taking their own experience as a reference, as well as the conclusions they have internalized from it.

Embrace the secure attachment that was never offered

It is extremely difficult for an adult to transmit a secure attachment to their child if they themselves have an insecure or anxious attachment. It is therefore important that parents work on this aspect, either independently or with the help of a psychologist. With the right orientation and the right point of view, one can achieve the three fundamental pillars of secure attachment.

What are these pillars? The feeling of constant security, the desire for closeness and emotional regulation. If the tutor does not acquire or internalize these pillars, he will have great difficulty in passing them on. Without wanting to, he will instill in his child an attachment very far from the notion of “secure”.

This process can seem very difficult, especially for those who have never been able to develop a secure attachment in their relationships. Thus,  the professional that the parents consult must work on the secure attachment relating to the adult-therapist relationship. The secure attachment is not only transmitted from parent to child, it also appears in other types of relationships such as that of the couple or a relationship of friendship.

The therapist will help parents above all with different tasks: detecting their emotions, identifying them, understanding them and expressing them adequately. In this case, repression or emotional anesthesia is something very usual; the origin can be a trauma or an experience which marked the person enormously. Recounting this experience so that the person can integrate it into their life story in a positive way will be one of the pillars of secure attachment.

Once the parent knows how to base his relationships on a secure attachment and lets go of the insecure or anxious attachment he has suffered from oblivion, he must step forward and bond with his children in this way. . If he has internalized the secure attachment well, this will not involve any problem for him. If this is not the case, it will be necessary to go back and continue the work in the adult-therapist relationship.

There is no point running

Even if we want to achieve this goal of bringing this secure attachment full of benefits to children, it is important to take care of ourselves first. What’s more, in many cases it is necessary to think about children to find the motivation enough to move on and not give up halfway.

There is no point running. It doesn’t matter if it takes years. When we are prepared, we will know that we will do it well because we ourselves have changed and because we have improved. When we think that what we are doing is stupid, that we are not going to change anything because we are already old or that it is a waste of time, we will have to stop thinking about ourselves to think about children. How much help we can give them if we make this change.

Do we wish to see our children suffer from emotional addiction or deep depression because of it? That they cannot establish stable relationships in their lives because of their deep fear of being abandoned? This is very real and is happening far more often than we realize. Lack of security, fears, insecurities, dependence …

Caring for ourselves is not only important for our children, it is also important for us. We will enjoy greater balance, we will feel happier, and we can have healthier relationships with others. It is worth it, at all levels, so let us not deny ourselves this process of maturity which will allow us to grow and learn to bond in another way. With a secure attachment that we did not receive but that we recovered.