Secure Attachment: Characteristics & Development

What Is Attachment Theory?

Attachment is the bond that forms between an infant and their primary caregiver (historically, this was usually a mother, but it can be anyone who frequently and consistently responds to the baby’s needs). It’s a process that begins at birth and continues to solidify throughout the first five or six years of life; however, it continues to evolve throughout life as we navigate relationships and experiences.^1,2

Babies are completely dependent upon an adult for survival. Distress activates the attachment process—when babies are hungry, wet, tired, overstimulated, scared, or lonely, they cry in order to attract the attention of their caregiver. Behaviors like smiling and interacting encourage ongoing positive, warm, and nurturing interactions.¹

Attachment serves three primary functions:

1. Keeping a caregiver close
2. Providing a secure base of ongoing care (as children grow, they feel safe wandering and exploring because they know they have a caring adult to return to)
3. Maintaining a safe haven of distress relief (someone will be there to assist through troubles)

Attachment isn’t a single event but a pattern of communication and response that becomes repetitive and automatic. Beyond keeping babies protected and alive, attachment is also one of the building blocks of our personalities, shaping the way we perceive ourselves and the world.^1,2,3

What Is Secure Attachment?

Secure attachment refers to a healthy, strong emotional bond between an infant and their primary caregiver. When a parent responds promptly and consistently to their baby’s cries, holds them often, and interacts with them according to their signals, the baby feels safe and supported, and is able to develop a sense of trust. They also feel they have worth — that their needs are worth responding to.¹

Prompt, consistent, and appropriate responsiveness from a parent or caregiver fosters brain and nervous system development.⁴ People who have had a secure attachment are able to correctly interpret their own emotions as well as the emotions of others and are likely to be adept at information processing and social responsiveness, skills that are important throughout life.¹

Secure attachment instills the core belief that the world is a safe place, which plays a part in skills like forming positive social connections and self-confidence.²

Characteristics of Secure Attachment in Babies & Children

Characteristics of secure attachment in babies and children include:^1,3,5

• Curiosity and willingness to explore
• Seeking comfort when upset
• Accepting comfort when given
• Kindness
• Social skills and positive relationships with parents, siblings, teachers, friends
• Overall happiness

Characteristics of Secure Attachment In Adults

Characteristics of a secure attachment style in adulthood include:^1,2,4,5

• Self-worth and self-confidence, a sense of personal empowerment rather than helplessness
• Social skills and the ability to make and maintain friendships
• Appropriate independent and dependent behaviors in relationships, neither avoiding nor desperately seeking intimacy
• Adaptability and flexibility in relationships and other life situations, including conflict
• Resilience and a high tolerance of frustration
• Self-reliance
• Empathy and an understanding of emotions (your own and others’)
• Trust
• Optimism, hope, and the belief in one’s ability to solve problems and overcome obstacles
• Belief that the world is safe and predictable

Secure vs Insecure Attachment

Secure attachment is the goal, but often, people do not receive the level of care and attention needed to establish this in childhood. Without secure attachments, people will develop insecure attachment styles based in mistrust, disappointment, and fear.

Insecure attachment styles include: 

• Anxious attachment: An attachment style where the person has a strong desire for connection but finds themselves struggling with anxiety, drama, and inconsistency in relationships.
• Avoidant attachment: A style that views attachment and relationships as meaningless and without value.
• Disorganized attachment: The most intense insecure attachment that tends to stem from childhood trauma.

Secure Attachment vs Love: Are They the Same?

While secure attachment and love are interconnected, they are not identical. Secure attachment is fundamentally about the quality and consistency of care that a parent/caregiver gives to an infant and continues to give as the baby grows.¹ A lack of secure attachment doesn’t mean that those parents don’t love their children. Love, though, is a strong force that drives secure attachment.

Secure attachment fosters love in relationships, and people who develop it in infancy and childhood tend to be in healthy, loving relationships and express a desire to engage in mutual caregiving and support. Characteristics of secure attachment and love in relationships include a balanced sense of closeness and intimacy, neither an avoidance of these experiences nor a pathological dependence on them.

Fortunately, secure attachment can be intentionally developed regardless of life circumstances. It doesn’t require money or advanced education. Also, adults who did not experience secure attachment in childhood aren’t doomed to a life of unhealthy relationships or low self-esteem.

How to Develop Secure Attachment in Your Child

To develop a secure attachment you can use an authoritative parenting style, create routines and rituals, interact with your child mindfully, embrace your mistakes, take care of your own mental health, and, if necessary, work on repairing your own attachment issues.

Here are some methods of helping your child develop secure attachment:

Use an Authoritative Parenting Style

Authoritative parenting is balanced parenting, neither overly permissive nor overly strict, and providing developmentally appropriate opportunities for independence and responsibility while remaining available for support.⁷ Two important keys to fostering secure attachment from infancy into adulthood are providing comfort when needed and giving a child the freedom to explore.⁵ It’s important to be consistently responsive and supportive at every stage of development, adjusting behaviors as the child grows but remaining present and available.¹

Create Routines & Rituals

Consistent and predictable responses are the heart of secure attachment. That’s because routine makes a child’s life predictable and stable.¹ When kids know what to expect as they wake and move throughout their day, they feel secure. Develop structure around morning activities, mealtimes, times of transition from one activity to the next, and bedtime. Allowing for flexibility is also important, as rigidly forcing children to adhere to a very strict schedule creates stress and, perhaps ironically, insecurity. Establish a general structure that allows for some realistic flexibility.

Interact With Your Child Mindfully

Mindfulness is a way of living life that involves being fully present in each interaction. Interacting mindfully with your baby/child requires being attentive and engaged.⁶ When tending to your infant, child, and teen, do so fully rather than multitasking. Make eye contact and tune in to their signals. Secure attachment and deep bonding happen when we’re mindful and present rather than distracted with our thoughts or tasks.

Embrace Your Mistakes

Secure attachment does not require perfect parenting.⁵ Each mistake (each time you are impatient or don’t respond immediately to your child’s needs, for example) is an opportunity to model humility and forgiveness, showing your child that no one is perfect but we’re all worthy of love and acceptance.⁸

Care for Your Own Mental Health

Mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety disorders can interfere with a parent’s ability to form positive connections and interactions with their baby/children.^1,6 Working with a therapist can help you overcome mental health challenges so you can fully engage in and enjoy parenting. Family therapy and/or parenting classes can also be helpful.¹

If Necessary, Repair Your Own Attachment

If you are among the 35-45% of people who did not develop a secure attachment in childhood, know that you can fill in gaps and form loving, healthy, and balanced relationships with yourself and others. Attachment styles continue to develop throughout life, and we can learn to choose and shape our own actions, responses, and environment.¹ Working with a therapist, having a mentor to support and guide you, and simply engaging in positive relationships with others can help you reshape your thoughts, emotions, and actions to create the life you want.⁴

Signs of Secure Attachment in Adult Relationships

People with a secure attachment style in adulthood will lean towards stable, consistent, and long-term relationships. They tend to choose appropriate relationships and leave when too many problems emerge.

Some signs of secure attachment in adults include:

• Good self-esteem and self-respect
• A strong ability to value and respect others
• A sense of being happy alone or with others
• Maintaining a balance between romantic relationships, work, and friendships
• Relying on relationships, at times, to manage stress

Just because you have a conflict or disagreement in the relationship does not mean your attachment is insecure, though. Having secure attachments does not mean you will have perfect relationships.

How to Develop Secure Attachment in Adulthood

Attachment styles stem from childhood, but there are ways to develop and build new directions throughout adulthood.

Here are five tips to develop secure attachment in adulthood:

1. Identify & Acknowledge Your Attachments 

To start the process, you have to know where you are beginning. What is your attachment style, and what events in life contributed to its development? Use honesty and acceptance to find your starting point.

2. Build Your Self-Esteem

Attachment and self-esteem are intricately connected, so you’ll need to reinforce your self-esteem to boost your attachment. Focus on your strengths, what you like about yourself, and what other people like about you. Though it may not relate to attachment directly, increasing your self-esteem will improve your attachment.

3. Resist Your Tendencies

Attachment issues will encourage you to seek out relationships with less desirable people. Avoid and push back against this tendency. Remember that your initial attraction to someone could be fueled by insecure attachment, so try to look at the person with logic, rather than with emotion.

4. Find the Trust Balance

Your attachment style could lead you to trusting everyone, or it could only result in powerful mistrust. To build your secure attachment, you’ll need to consistently measure your trust of others and ask if this is accurate. Confer with loved ones to see if your perceptions are accurate or overly influenced from problems with your attachments.

5. Address Childhood Concerns in Therapy

With much of attachment being formed in childhood, you may need to address and resolve some childhood issues in therapy. With the guidance of a skilled and experienced therapist, you can identify and process past events, so they no longer affect the present.

Final Thoughts on Secure Attachment

Parenting isn’t easy, and it can feel overwhelming at times. You don’t have to be an expert or achieve perfection to foster your baby’s/child’s secure attachment. Aim to be fully present with them and respond to their needs consistently and lovingly. It’s this warm, regular interaction that creates secure attachment.