Analytical Essay on Family Relationship: Impact of Family Environment on Development of Different Attachment Behaviours

A child’s development really relies on a strong reliable adult figure. Their sole survival is in the hands of the adult, forming attachments is important as it forms a secure base for the infant. The child will eventually grow as a person and build on confidence, a whole self, enabling to interact with others assertively which help for later in adult relationships. For example, insecure resistant attachment often go for the parasocial relationships which are relationships with people who are famous, or fictional by is one-sided. There are three stages from mild to extreme. The entertain social by Giles and Matey this level is just standard for individuals, often teenagers, talking and engaging with the lives of people with fame. Stage 2 is the intense-personal, this is were obsessed comes into action. Individuals focus on more finely tuned details of their lives. Lastly, the borderline pathological this is the most intense level. Stalking, obsessive behaviour is present, finically and emotionally invested in a celebrity. Securely attached individuals will rarely engage with stage 3, this could be because the people who are mostly compensating for an insufficient amount of a certain aspect of attachment.

Different attachments behaviours were monitored and observed in Mary Ainsworth’s experiment called the strange situation. The aim was to get a conclusion of how children with various attachments react under controlled conditions with the caregiver, in this case mother, is not present. The observation was natural. The stranger and mother would enter and exit the room. The findings were that the reactions of the infants were characterised with the labels, insecure avoidant, secure and insecure resistant. The observation was subjective as if there were more children then a pattern would be more coherent. An attachment type is temporary and be altered over the course of its years. This illustrates that motherly attachment, primary caregiver attachment, are important for the mental health of the child as shown in the experiment that the insecure resistant attachment type was very distressed when they were separated from their mother. But then the secure attached child was also distressed aswell but this is common in all children disregarding what they are labelled as. In the family environment it impacts on the development of different attachment behaviours. This also applies to the sibling relationships. There are 5 types of unhealthy sibling relationships including the scapegoat and golden child this usually consists of the parent being a narcissist socio or psychopath and treating the child closest in similarities to them with more love and care. Therefore, the golden child treats the scapegoat in the way parents treat it. This usually results in the scapegoat child seeking acceptance and love elsewhere. The next type is the royal brat and the wise owl. This combination is the fairly common within families. The brat seeks attention by throwing tantrums resulting in the parents giving in because its distressing consequently resulting in the royal brat never learns how to channel their anger and emotions as it was never taught to them. Whereas the wise owl is the mature and fully fledged child being the observant character they have to work for it isn’t handed things on a silver platter. The royal brat then takes this treatment from the parents as there are ‘the boss’ and the ‘the favourite’ and imposes orders on the other sibling. This can cause a strain on their relationship as there is no sense of equality there is a divide in fairness. Obstinance from the wise owl results in the royal brat giving them a difficult time. The third type is the bully and the victim. This a miserable type as usually the younger sibling is the one who gets bullied mimicking how the older sibling is treated by the dominant parent. Emotional and physical abuse is endured, and this distressing behaviour occurs a lot. The fourth type of sibling relationship is the addict and enabler. This duo often reflects how the parent’s dynamic is with the enabler looking after the addict this eventually causes harm to the enabler as they watch there sibling slowly get worse and worse just like a parent. The final type of relationship is the ghost and hungry child. Both children have little sense of belonging as one seeks emotional validation from the other sibling/s but yet the other/s but doesn’t know how to manage with the anarchy of the household therefore is pushed away out of the group and is the ghost but the hungry child wants to ease its way closer to the ghost as it has more of a sense of belonging. Children feel like they need to fit in to build confidence in the future and develop a whole self as a part of growth and development. The weaker siblings in these types of sibling relationships will all be labelled with the different attachment types. The golden child, royal brat will have most likely have a secure attachment. Securely attached children are easily calmed by the attachment figure when distraught. The child cultivates a secure attachment when the primary caregiver is comforting to the needs of the child and reacts based on the how the child is. Whether they are a calm child or a spoilt child like the royal brat.