The New York Times’ Perri Klass delves into Why a Baby’s Connection with a Parent Matters in a bid to elucidate the importance of attachment on children. The article, published on June 26, 2017, covers several patterns of attachment and explains how most of these patterns affect the development of a child and even their adulthood. Borrowing John Bowlby’s attachment theory, Klass (2017) synthesizes findings from different researchers with a view to supporting her arguments. The article notes that, before John Bowlby’s experiment and findings, researchers merely believed that the actions of parents at home impacted behaviour of children in a strange situation, before Bowlby’s findings clarified the situation. The major takeaway from the article, however, is that the minds of children are flexible or plastic unless they are faced with extreme situations or exposed to extreme environments. When faced with extreme environments, their reactions can be unprecedented. As such, Perri Klass concludes that well-adjusted and socially-competent children are those who were securely attached to their parents mostly during their second year. Children, as they grow up, are faced with a variety of strange situations away from their parents, but what matters is the knowledge that they will come back to their parents for comfort. Attachment, according to Perri Klass, and most researchers, provides a feeling of security for children who drift away from their parents to explore their environments and the world at large.
These conclusions are adapted from a research conducted by Jay Belsky and R.M Pacso Fearson entitled Early attachment security, subsequent maternal sensitivity, and later child development: Does continuity in development depend upon continuity of caregiving? Published in 2002, the research was conducted around three major hypotheses: secure attachment produces competent children, insecure attachment and low-sensitive mothering creates incompetent children, and a mixture of the two patterns of attachment would produce children who fall in between (competent or incompetent). Belsky and Fearson (2002) examined data from Early Child Care study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The research included A-priori tests coupled with five primary developmental outcomes to support the hypotheses. The five outcomes included social competence, school readiness, problem behaviour, expressive, and receptive language (Belsky & Fearson, 2002). From the follow-up analyses, the researchers established a causal relationship between maternal and family stress, and the security in some infants at 15 months. The analyses further revealed the critical role that attachment plays in the life of a baby both during childhood and adulthood. The analyses involved examination of the previously listed five outcomes with all the participants being children (3-year-olds).
Perri Klass’ press article is a reflection of most of the aspects of Belsky and Fearson’s journal article. Perri, while incorporating other studies and expert opinion, contends that secure attachment during childhood is one of the major producers of highly competent children and adults. While the news article does not directly refer to the methods of the journal article, the findings and conclusions are similar which makes both articles highly related. The accurate reflection, therefore, serves to further ground the news articles’ claims while providing more information on the subject matter. The conclusion of both articles imply that children need secure attachment during childhood for proper social and emotional development.