A baby is born, cries and finds solace in the breast. “Bonding”: This is what the first physical contact between mother and newborn is called, a step towards physical bonding. The mother can later recognize the child’s needs from the child’s behavior and respond to them. But should she be the most important person in the hierarchy for the offspring for the rest of her life without exception? What about the father or other people around the child?
The parenting method, in which the mother tries to respond to all of the child’s interests, has its origins in attachment theory. The theory, based on the British psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist John Bowlby, is recognized in day-care centers and by the general public in Germany. For the development of an emotionally healthy person, it presupposes that he gets enough love from his attachment figure in childhood – be it from his mother or father.
The attachment figure is the person the child is looking for, for example, when it has fallen off the swing, or for whom it is particularly crying when it is separated, as the child and adolescent psychiatrist Karl Heinz Brisch explains. The characteristics of an attachment figure include, for example, a sensitive character that reacts to the child’s emotions. Spending time together alone is not enough. Only those who are caring can comfort a crying child. Only then does the attachment figure act as needed.
In her book Myth of Attachment Theory, Heidi Keller, a psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, criticizes that attachment theory claims universal validity in the West. According to Keller, it is not common in many cultures for only mother and father to take care of the child – relatives, neighbors and siblings also played a major role in bringing up the child.
Contact with other people is particularly important in order to acquire and expand social skills. The children would only benefit from this. Constant availability can also trigger exhaustion or burnout in some women. Because in the end, the mother is usually alone.
Psychiatrist Brisch confirms that children prioritize and usually have one or two attachment figures: “Children usually hierarchize, depending on who is more sensitive to them.” This does not necessarily have to be mother and father, but could also be other people. “Bonding has nothing to do with biological relationship,” says Brisch. There is no scientific evidence that children are more attracted to blood relatives.
Long-term study over 40 years
Keller points to a pioneering long-term study by US psychologists Emmi Werner and Ruth Smith, who followed hundreds of children born on the island of Kauai in 1955 for over 40 years. A third of them were disadvantaged by difficult circumstances or poverty, but nevertheless developed without any behavioral problems. According to the study, the reason for this was not the attachment to mother or father, but rather relationships with peers, neighbors, teachers or even surrogate parents.
Source: Nachrichten
