Sensitive mothering refers to mother’s character use to interact with her child. Sensitive mothers observe and understand a child’s needs appropriately. Take for example; Kara was down with fever one night. Her mother was alerted by it and gave her some fever medicine immediately. She took good care of paid full attention on Kara until the next morning. Kara She would not recover such in a short time if her mother was not sensitive enough.
Conversely, what is Emotions and social? Emotions are a state of feeling with physiological, situational and cognitive components. “This includes body reaction, environment presence, ideas and thoughts” (SOURCE HERE). Social is a relationship and interaction that one has with another person. The core feature of emotional development is the ability to identify and understand children’s feeling and precisely know their emotional state. Infant’s emotions are strongly related to their mother as a response that promotes survival during the first year of life. A simple smile would help the infant to be closer to the caregiver. When a parent shows extra care and attention to a child, it will naturally generate a positive emotion in the child and consequently affect the child’s social development. How do we create a positive attachment? It is best to have physical contact such as hugs and kisses. This activist such activity creates specific Neurochemical responses in the brain that which allows the brain to response to attachment.
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This would then create a solid foundation for emotions which leads to better social development. This is why sensitive mother are so important to the development of the child.
Sensitive mother have a major influence towards children’s social and emotional development. They affect a child to have positive or negative emotions. Children whom have early interaction with their mother would develop mother-infant relationship which consequently develops a harmonious relationship.(Source) Furthermore, when mothers were more sensitive, their children were more empathic, more compliant with adults, and less likely to develop behavioral problems. (Sroufe& Fleeson,1988). From my research, many experts believe that young children will develop a more secure attachment when there is constant and responsive care from an adult. The quality of a relationship would reflect the level of security a child has with an adult. A child’s mind works similar to this: “When mummy smile, I am good but when mummy frowns, I am bad”. (SOURCE HERE). Take for example, Michelle’s mother would go and give her a hug when she cries. Michelle would feel loved by her mother and develop the trust and security. This will naturally generate a positive emotion and consequently affect Michelle’s social development such as friendly socially. This goes to show the importance of a sensitive mother as a foundation in developing positive social and emotions.
However, a child could be denied from such social and emotional progress when there is lack of interaction, love and personal care from their mother. According to Bowlby emphasized, if a healthy attachment is not made between the mother and child, the child’s emotional development would be damage and would lead to abnormal personality development. Such denial causes the child to have problem relating to others, also display symptoms of attachment disruption or disorder which leads to lying, stealing, and a lack of impulse control in the later stage of development. (Source) For example; Yan Ling whom is deprived in social and emotional development would torture her family dog and when her parents are out of sight, she would abuse her younger siblings.
According to Bowlby’s ethological theory of attachment, infant’s emotions are strongly related to their mother as a response that promotes survival and has four stages in it (SOURCE HERE). The first stage is pre-attachment, which starts from birth to week twelve 12. A simple smile would help the infant to be closer to the caregiver. In the second stage which is known as the attachment on the making stage, which starts from 3-8 three to eight months. By now, infants are starting to develop a sense of security with their mothers. In this period, they expect to be attends when respond with a signal but they will not protest from separation. The third stage is the clear-cut attachment. It starts from 6 months to about 2 two years old. During this period, babies show signs of anxiety when separated with their mothers. For example when Kara’s mother leaves her with a friend, she would cry but when the returning of the mother, she would stop crying almost instantly. At this stage, babies would be insecure when they are left with someone they are unattached to. The Last final stage is the formation of reciprocal relationship. From the age of 2 two, toddler knows their parents are going to work; they are capable of predicting an capability to predict such event. By reading a store before going to work would give the assurance to the toddler that their parents will return. The extra more time parents spend with their toddler, it would allow them to understand and help toddler withstand their parent’s absence.
Bowlby did some research with 44 juvenile thieves based on his theory. He studied that prolonged separation of a child from his mother during the first five years of life causes development of delinquent character. His theory is also supported by Harlow and Zimmerman in a study conducted with infant monkeys. Baby monkeys preferred a surrogate mother with cloth body rather than a wired mother (Source here). The experiment shows the need for contact comfort is important for social and emotional development.
According to Erik Erickson, people develop in psychosocial stages and not in psychosexual stages. It is social and reflects that generates the desire to have a relation with other people. He also says that developmental changes over our life span and early and later experiences are important in a person’s development (SOURCE HERE). It is social and reflects that generates the desire to have a relation with other people. Therefore after gaining trust from a mother, infants will gradually know their own behavior and begin to approach their life situation with confidence. Alan Srouffe in Smith et al.,(2003) finds that children who were securely attached as babies grow into balanced sensitive, socially competent, cooperative and trusting individuals who approach life situation with confidence. Sensitive mothering forms the path of confidence and trust in facing life.
Shame is developed when toddler restrain their development too much. Preschool is a very important place for a child to develop, as they widen their social world it would allow them to face challenges that requires purposeful and responsible behavior. The feeling of guilt may arise if the child is irresponsible and such would make them feel anxious. As we know, a proper attachment a child has with their mother would build positive emotions. Therefore this makes the mother child attachment more influential to how the child is developing.
Mary Ainsworth did further research on Bowlby’s theory using the Strange Situation test. According to her research, she came out four types of attachment; secure attachment, insecure attachment, resistant attachment and disoriented attachment. Children with secure attachment would be positive and have a sensitive caretaker. They also tend to be warmer, positive, stable and satisfying intimate relationship. Children with insecure attachment tend to be negative and will have lack of confidence. They will feel insecure, fear of intimacy and prefer to be alone just like Yan Ling as mentioned above. Children with resistant attachment would have a mixed behavior of protest, anger and resistant. Because of the inconsistency in emotions from the caretaker, children would have no expectation of trust regarding access and responses from the caretaker. Children whom are disorientated attachment reflect the greatest insecurity. The child would resist reunion after separation.
Mary Ainsworth also believes that sensitive mothers with good attachment with their children, helps the development of positive social and emotions. Different mothering styles bring different impact to a child’s development. For example Li-Ann is 5. She is friend with her whole class and she is known as a chatterbox in class. She is a very positive person as she will not give up easily when she faces failure but she creates the interest in learning the concepts. She is a mummy’s child as everyone knows; this is because Li-Ann has a positive and encouraging mother. This also proves that mother’s attachment brings to a child social and emotional development.
John Bowlby (1969) said “Attachment is a lasting psychological connectedness between human beings”. To measure attachment in older adolescents and adults, Main(source) and her co-workers developed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). This is a semi-structured interview that probes memories of one’s own early childhood experience. AAI yielded four main patterns. Autonomous are person who can recalled their own earlier attachment-related experiences objectively and openly, even if these were not favorable. Dismissive are those who dismiss attachment relationships as a little concern. Persons who seem preoccupied with dependency on their own parents and still actively struggle to please them are enmeshed. Finally, the unresolved are persons who have experienced a trauma or early death of an attachment figure and have not come to terms (Smith et al.,2003).
Take for example; Yan Ling has a loose attachment with both her parents. She is a shy and timid person, with little friends around her. She also has a strong negative perception of things, she will blamed herself when things goes wrong even though it is no her fault. According to Ainsworth, when a child has a secure attachment to the parents, they would use their parents as a secure base from which they would explore out of their comfort zone. This is where social development takes place. Lately when her mother starts to spend more time with her, their attachment improves gradually. These days she has a more positive perception of life and has made her more social able. This shows the importance of a mother’s attachment to a child.
In conclusion, a mother’s attachment to a child is the most important thing that could shape a child’s social and emotional development. If a mother has a close attachment, this would most probably produce a positive, sociable, and emotionally strong person. Mothers play a sensitive role in shaping children’s development and it is the responsibility of the mother in meeting their children’s needs for emotional support and to help develop a whole child.
