Back by Popular Demand: How to support your child's secure attachment even if you didn't grow up with it with Dr. Miriam Steele
Aug 25, 2026 · 50 min · 13 segments
- Speakers
Miriam SteeleGuest
Sarah BrenHost
Aug 25, 2026 · 50 min · 13 segments
Miriam SteeleGuestSarah BrenHost
And so if parents are listening to this and... 'Cause I think when you hear this stuff and you don't understand, like, the whole picture, and you hear of, like, sometimes m- I come in a room and my kid doesn't want me to pick them up, or, you know, sometimes my kid doesn't even notice when I leave.
And does that mean that they're avoidantly insecurely attached, or that they're p- you know, anxiously atta- and, and, you know, not...
I think parents sometimes forget that these are things that we are observing in certain circumstances, but we wanna look at them in the aggregate when we're talking about parent-child relationships.
Like, not always will this one particular event mean globally my child has an insecure attachment style.
'Cause I think parents, they put so much pressure on themselves, and I'm curious if you hear this too, in, like, your world of, you know, being both a researcher and just a regular person in the world with, you know, around parents and kids and just...
What can you reassure parents about in this way when they're listening to this and being like, "I don't know what to make of this, 'cause I don't know what my kid is doing all the time"?
You know? The, there's a lot that we can absorb in the not getting it quite right.
And in fact, um, even the securely attached, it's less than 50% of the time that there's an attuned moment.
That is, a moment in which, say, the infant is looking towards the mother and the mother looks back.
And that we learn a lot about our relationships from the misattuned, 'cause when you...
We're all built to make for those moments of meeting where you feel connected, right? We're, we're kind of addicted to that as a species, 'cause I think it has that evolutionary, um, essence as part of who we are.
Where are they? That usually works as a way of getting her to come near or do something that I want.
How can I do this differently? How can I bring her back?" Uh, so Ed Tronick, a researcher in Boston, uh, came up with this still face, and there's all kinds of examples, um, on the internet of these still face, um, where mother and baby are looking at one another, then the mother's instructed to go neutral, a blank face.
And you see these young babies kind of reaching out or smiling or yelling and trying to get her to come back.
But if you do too many of those, then the child gives up, and then forms these other defensive patterns which are more akin to the insecurely, um, attached.
I think this push for perfection, um, which I see and attribute, um, to a lot of what they call attachment parenting out there.
Um, and so some of it has some valid ideas, but for the most part, they're really pushing parents to this idea of perfection which is not anywhere embedded in the original writings and theories and research of mainstream attachment as delineated by John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main, and some of the rest of us.
So for example, this, the co-sleeping until the child is five or seven, for example.
That's, that, the, there's no one-to-one parallel that doing that you're gonna get a securely attached child.
It's in the little interactions, following the child's lead, letting the child feel that you are somewhere present near them and that you have them in mind, is the essence of the secure attachment.
And so if parents are listening to this and... 'Cause I think when you hear this stuff and you don't understand, like, the whole picture, and you hear of, like, sometimes m- I come in a room and my kid doesn't want me to pick them up, or, you know, sometimes my kid doesn't even notice when I leave.
And does that mean that they're avoidantly insecurely attached, or that they're p- you know, anxiously atta- and, and, you know, not...
I think parents sometimes forget that these are things that we are observing in certain circumstances, but we wanna look at them in the aggregate when we're talking about parent-child relationships.
Like, not always will this one particular event mean globally my child has an insecure attachment style.
'Cause I think parents, they put so much pressure on themselves, and I'm curious if you hear this too, in, like, your world of, you know, being both a researcher and just a regular person in the world with, you know, around parents and kids and just...
What can you reassure parents about in this way when they're listening to this and being like, "I don't know what to make of this, 'cause I don't know what my kid is doing all the time"?
You know? The, there's a lot that we can absorb in the not getting it quite right.
And in fact, um, even the securely attached, it's less than 50% of the time that there's an attuned moment.
That is, a moment in which, say, the infant is looking towards the mother and the mother looks back.
And that we learn a lot about our relationships from the misattuned, 'cause when you...
We're all built to make for those moments of meeting where you feel connected, right? We're, we're kind of addicted to that as a species, 'cause I think it has that evolutionary, um, essence as part of who we are.
Where are they? That usually works as a way of getting her to come near or do something that I want.
How can I do this differently? How can I bring her back?" Uh, so Ed Tronick, a researcher in Boston, uh, came up with this still face, and there's all kinds of examples, um, on the internet of these still face, um, where mother and baby are looking at one another, then the mother's instructed to go neutral, a blank face.
And you see these young babies kind of reaching out or smiling or yelling and trying to get her to come back.
But if you do too many of those, then the child gives up, and then forms these other defensive patterns which are more akin to the insecurely, um, attached.
I think this push for perfection, um, which I see and attribute, um, to a lot of what they call attachment parenting out there.
Um, and so some of it has some valid ideas, but for the most part, they're really pushing parents to this idea of perfection which is not anywhere embedded in the original writings and theories and research of mainstream attachment as delineated by John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main, and some of the rest of us.
So for example, this, the co-sleeping until the child is five or seven, for example.
That's, that, the, there's no one-to-one parallel that doing that you're gonna get a securely attached child.
It's in the little interactions, following the child's lead, letting the child feel that you are somewhere present near them and that you have them in mind, is the essence of the secure attachment.
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