How Attachments Begin:  the Good Story! 

Five day old Joyce had been crying on and off all day.  

“Maybe she’s hungry,” Russell said.

“No,” Maria was nearly wailing herself. “I just fed her.”

Russell bounced the baby up and down while Maria answered the phone. Russell strained to hear over the crying when Maria held the phone to his ear: “Just put the baby down and let her cry herself to sleep. She’ll learn not to cry,” Joyce’s great great aunt offered. “It‘s what I always did. She’ll stop crying eventually”. Maria made a face, but her voice was kind as she thanked her for her advice, got off the phone quickly and turned to her husband.

“That’s ridiculous.”  Maria said. “She’s crying for a reason, how can we ignore her?”

A day of frustration was in her voice, and Russell noted the exhaustion in her face as he bounced the baby, patted her on the shoulder, and said “there, there, it’s okay” in a cadence that matched the baby’s whimpers. 

In this short scenario, we see the beginnings of good attachment. A wailing baby at first makes us melt, but after a while the baby’s crying becomes stressful. This makes sense, as this is exactly what the baby is feeling.  In the vignette above, the parents are sensitive to the baby’s feelings. Maria dismisses her great aunt’s advice to let the baby cry by himself and, fortunately, she does not worry about pleasing her relative; but she does worry about why the baby is crying and what to do about it. She is aware of what the baby is feeling, and she is involved in responding to her.  Bouncing the baby, cooing to the baby, talking to the baby - these show their little baby girl that they are going to try to make things right for her.   This is exactly how the healthy attachment forms.  It is more than  managing the behavior of the child, it is reading the behavior as a symptom of what is happening inside.

The baby is crying because she is unhappy. And because she is a baby, she cannot say why she is unhappy, and it is up to the parents to work that piece out. They have become detectives. More than that as well, they have become involved in solving the problem with her by listening, by responding.

Russell holds Joyce and gently bouncing her,  sensitive to her cries (mood) and involved (responding) by calming her. Russell  responds to the baby’s crying with a voice that matches the cadence, but lowers the sound, and though he doesn’t know it, he’s using a valuable calming technique. As she senses his sympathetic behavior, she will begin to calm down.

On this particular night, perhaps they will change very little.  Despite their feelings of despair, they are doing a great deal.  This small baby is learning that Mom and Dad fix things calmly.  They talk it out, they trade caretaking back and forth so each can keep as calm as possible and eventually the baby will begin to calm.

Eventually, the baby will begin to calm and somewhere inside to begin to react to their reactions.  The baby will learn to cry and that her expressions of pain are communications and that someone will listen!  

So when baby Joyce is 15 and finding herself in trouble, she will know who listens and who knows how to help.

That is the kind of attachment that every good parent wants and the kind of attachment that tends to keeps children safe.