Chapter 10 Emotional Development PDF

Chapter 10 Emotional Development “When you are tempted to pet your child, remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument. It encourages weaknesses, reserves, fears, cautions, and inferiorities. The child will end up a whiny irresponsible, dependent failure of a human being. Don’t pick them up...

Chapter 10 Emotional Development “When you are tempted to pet your child, remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument. It encourages weaknesses, reserves, fears, cautions, and inferiorities. The child will end up a whiny irresponsible, dependent failure of a human being. Don’t pick them up when they cry, don’t hold them for pleasure. Pat them on the head when they do well, shake their hand, okay, kiss them on their forehead but only on big occasions.” John Watson, Behaviorist, APA President, 1928  Behaviorist view of Closeness Seeking Behaviors Closeness seeking behaviors are a result of classical conditioning. Caregiver has been associated with food. In other words, closeness seeking is just learned behavior, not a need. If closeness seeking behaviors are reinforced (operant conditioning), they will create dependence. Harry Harlow: Children seek closeness because they have a primate need for comfort. It’s not because they are looking for food. studies Responding to closeness seeking behaviors does not create dependence. It makes independence possible.  John Bowlby: Theory of Attachment Care Seeking System: Instinct to seek proximity to a specific person who will comfort, protect and organize one’s feelings Exploratory System: Instinct to follow one’s innate curiosity and desire for mastery, when it feels safe to do so Care Giving System – Instinct to monitor a specific person, and to comfort, and/or organize that person’s feelings when necessary  The theory of attachment is the science of this need for connection. Benefits of Secure Attachment Emotional Emotional Regulation Self-esteem Cognitive School Performance Social Social skills Less aggression  Attachment Human attachment represents the axis around which our life gravitates, no only in childhood and the school years, but in adolescence and throughout adulthood. From these close bonds are born the strength to overcome obstacles and the desire to live life. Traditional wisdom and scientific discovery agree on this fact. - John Bowlby  Each one of us has imprinted a complex history of moments in which we felt that we mattered or not, when we asked and our need was met and times when we asked and noone responded to our need.  Secure Attachment Relationship Parent – Responsive; child feels SEEN, SAFE, SOOTHED, SECURE Child - Uses caregiver as secure base and safe haven  Avoidant Attachment Relationship Parent: Unresponsive to child’s needs for closeness Child’s Strategy: Shows insecurity by avoiding caregiver  Anxious Attachment Relationship Parent: Inconsistent or intrusive parent Child’s strategy: Clings to caregiver, then resists by fighting against the closeness Choose One ______A. I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. ______B. I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me. ______C. I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people away. Childhood attachment strategies become Internal Working Models (IWM) Secure attachment → Secure IWM Avoidant attachment → Dismissing IWM Anxious Attachment → Preoccupied IWM A securely attached child will store an internal working model of a responsive, loving, reliable care-giver, and of a self that is worthy of love and attention and will bring these assumptions to bear on all other relationships. Conversely, an insecurely attached child may view the world as a dangerous place in which other people are to be treated with great caution and see (themselves) as ineffective and unworthy of love. - John Bowlby  Internal Working Model Jude Cassidy I’m here Responsive Parent You’re worth it You’re here Secure State of Mind I’m worth it  The strongest predictor of secure or insecure infant attachment is the caregiver’s internal working model (state of mind). Internal Working Models We do unto others as we’re done to. Selma Fraiberg (1980)  Temperament  Individual differences in reactivity and self- regulation Chess and Thomas Easy Difficult Slow-to-warm up Goodness of Fit – how responsive is the adult to the child’s temperament? Can we develop a secure internal working model even if we didn’t have security as a child? “Earned Secure”  Self-reflection "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." ~ C.G. Jung  The courage to self-reflect In blocking off what hurts us, we think we are walling ourselves off from pain. But in the long run, the wall, which prevents growth, hurts us more than the pain, which if we will only bear it, soon passes over us......walls remain. Alice Walker (1990)  Circle of Security 50 years of research in an accessible self-reflection program based on attachment.  Circle of security attempts to help caregivers recognize and fully honor these fundamental needs in themselves and in their child.  Secure individuals fear danger but they do not fear separation (independence) or closeness (vulnerability).