Transcript
0:01 I've been spending my life trying to put the pieces together of how attachment unfolds. And in fact I had a wonderful opportunity of taking a whole year off just to be able to study all the attachment theories. Throughout the ages, actually. And see how it is that attachment is meant to happen. And it's a beautiful story really, I'll try to tell it very quickly and very simply. In the first year of life a child attaches through wanting to be with: to be in sight, in smell, in hearing, in touch.
0:31 But, by the second year of life, a new way of attaching should open up in which the child wants to be like; not only with, but like. And this is the key to language acquisition; to stamping our form on their behaviour. It's a key to so many things. If that goes well, by the third year, a child becomes preoccupied with belonging and becomes preoccupied with loyalty.
1:02 To be on the same side as - which is a different way of closeness - to take the same side, to serve and obey. And that's when the obedience instincts begin to be there. By the fourth year of life you should see, in a child, a huge quest for significance, to matter, because he feels close now when he is dear to those that he is attached to. Now if everything unfolds properly, the fifth year is incredible.
1:29 The limbic system, the amygdala, the command centre of the limbic system, the emotional brain - pulls out all its stops, and the child gives his heart to whomever he is attached to. He falls in love and he's deeply emotionally attached; to his kitten, to his grandma, to anything that is there. And this is amazing and it's so important, because when the child develops at that level it sets the stage for the rest of parenting. We cannot parent children whose hearts we do not have.
1:59 We can't parent even our grandchildren whose hearts we do not have, or our adult children. This is absolutely essential. So, children need to fall deeply into attachment and we need to make it easy for them. The last stage is a very interesting stage. If it's safe to attach, there's no defendedness emotionally, then the child actually wants to share all that is within his heart. And so the six-year-old is busy telling her secrets, and doesn’t want to have any secrets that divide.
2:30 This is the beginning of psychological intimacy, which should characterize our marriages and our best friendships. And so we've got all kinds of intimacies: with, like, belonging, mattering, our heart - emotional intimacy - and then finally - psychological intimacy. And this is the context in which children are meant to be raised. So the beginning, the infancy and toddler, is just the beginning of a wonderful unfolding and development of the capacity for relationship.
Summary
- Attachment begins in infancy with a desire to be physically close (sight, smell, hearing, touch).
- By age two, children start to desire to be like those they are attached to, which aids in language acquisition and behavioral modeling.
- At three years old, children focus on belonging and loyalty, developing obedience instincts.
- By four, children seek significance, feeling close when they matter to their attachments.
- The fifth year marks deep emotional attachment, where children can fall in love with people and pets, setting the stage for future parenting.
- At six, children begin to share their innermost thoughts, indicating the start of psychological intimacy.
- The development of various forms of intimacy is essential for healthy relationships and parenting.
- The unfolding of attachment is critical for raising children who can form meaningful connections throughout their lives.