“My son behaves great, he spends the whole afternoon playing alone in his room and doesn’t bother anything, how wonderful.” You’ve probably heard this phrase more than once. In these cases, you get desperate and look for the magic formula that this mom or dad uses to get their child to spend the whole afternoon “undisturbed”. Instead, your child asks you to play with him or her all the time or asks for your attention constantly.

I have some good news for you; it is normal and healthy for our children to ask us, “make war” and want to spend time with us. That a child spends the whole afternoon at his own pace can allow us to have time to do household chores and finish things that are pending at work, but it is important for you to know that this has some consequences.

The importance of attachment

What is attachment? Attachment is the emotional bond that is established between the child and his caregivers , mainly with the mother. This emotional bond is important for the baby to feel protected and confident. Furthermore, it will allow us to learn to relate to ourselves and to others, helping us to understand the world.

There are several types of attachment: secure, anxious, disorganized and avoidant. The quality of affection we offer our children and the predictability of the parents’ behavior will determine the type of attachment. That is why it is important that as parents we are always available for the baby’s needs and attend to these in a stable and predictable way. Otherwise, we will be creating an insecure attachment that can facilitate the development of different fears and insecurities in the child, appearing as the basis of anxiety.

When parents are not affectively in tune with their children, they are distant in the case of avoidant attachment, or intrusive in the case of anxious attachment, causing in these distress, distrust and insecurity. Children, in these cases, try to adapt to the environment by creating strategies that allow them to alleviate their discomfort.

The keys to understanding avoidant attachment

Returning to our initial example, we are faced with an avoidant attachment. In this case the parents do not tend to be emotionally in tune with the child, ignoring the child’s emotional needs .

There’s no validation of the little one’s emotions. He learns that being sad or crying is not appropriate and that showing it leads to rejection by others, but if he does not show emotions there is recognition by his parents; for example, they reinforce and reward him for spending the whole afternoon playing alone in his room. You end up learning not to bother your parents with your needs. This way, his parents will be physically closer to him. Therefore, these children sacrifice closeness to others to avoid rejection , that is, the child learns that he has to fend for himself and that he cannot trust others.

In addition, the child also begins to use reasoning as a form of emotional regulation. He or she tries to get away from affection and its manifestation, acting according to what he or she thinks his or her parents expect of him or her, trying not to be a nuisance. It is important to bear in mind that children will learn to regulate their emotions according to how their parents do it .

It is extremely important that in stressful situations for a child it is his parents who calm him down. We try to tell them to go to their room and not to come out until they are calmer, but it is not possible for a child to calm down by himself. Imagine that we arrive home very angry about something that has happened to us at work, we try to tell our partner and she tells us that until we relax we should not talk to her. See what happens to you: do you manage to relax? Or, on the contrary, does it make you more angry and deregulate?

As in adults it provokes a negative reaction, in children too, with the added circumstance that they need the contact to calm down. The child needs company to relax and it is important that we are the facilitators of this regulation. If we are not the ones who provide him with this security, he will be a child, an adolescent and an insecure adult.

What are the consequences of this kind of link?

When the protection figure is not physically or emotionally present , this situation leads the child to regulate himself with something that can substitute this absence: material things, tasks, food or other people. This type of emotional regulation is dysfunctional, so on occasions pathological behaviours may appear. In adolescence and adulthood, the use of drugs, alcohol or pathological gambling may also be employed. Sometimes it is even the parents who use material utensils to regulate the well-being of their children. Today the use of technologies is one of the most effective resources that parents use, but through which they obtain negative consequences.

A child’s inability to regulate himself or herself may facilitate the development of psychological disorders such as anxiety, phobias, depression or personality disorders. On the other hand, in the face of inconsistent attachment figures, the child develops a perception of himself as being of little value and feelings of abandonment , as well as m fear of rejection by others. If the caregiver is cold and the child has feelings of not being worthy of affection, this will lead to problems in his self-esteem.

The inability to be intimate with others is also a factor. In adulthood these people will be individuals with barriers to social and couple relationships, since the relationships that we establish with our reference figures will determine our relationships when we are adolescents and later adults; there will be great difficulty in expressing emotions and feelings to others. If at home there is no space to name the emotions and to express them, it will be difficult to recognize them.

How can we improve the bond with our children?

The children need us to tune in to them, that is, to be able to put ourselves in their shoes. The harmful behaviours they sometimes carry out, such as more aggressive actions, stopping eating, having nightmares or not relating to other children, are indicators that they do not feel well . This is where we have to tune in to them and not remain in superficial behaviour, but try to understand the depth of what is happening.

If every time my son doesn’t eat I talk down to him and punish him, I won’t be in tune with him. In that case, you have to do a job of reflection and see what suggests that your child does not want to eat. If you act on what you want and not what the child needs, you will not be helping him.

We can also improve the bond by playing and spending quality time with the children, dedicating moments exclusively to them. The fundamental thing is to put words to emotions, look into their eyes, smile, sing, have physical contact… in conclusion, offer a base that provides them with calm and security .

There are times when it will be our own life history that prevents us from having a safe and healthy bond with our children. In that case, it is important to contact a specialist and have him help us solve those things in the past that prevent us from functioning in the present. Remember: Our discomfort is transmitted and perceived by the youngest in the house.