Developmental Stages and Attachment Parenting - Trust v. Mistrust

I teach Psychology classes at a university and I love that developmental theories support attachment parenting. One of my favorite theorists is Erik Erikson. He theorized 8 stages that go from birth to late adulthood. One of my favorite online articles about Erikson is on The Learning Place. The stages are opposing outcomes of the typical challenges during that age. The outcomes are on a continuum, so it’s not an “either/or” situation. The stages occur linearly, but people can return to the stages later on to address any issues that arose. Most people do that in adulthood while attending therapy.

The first stage is Trust v. Mistrust. It lasts from birth to 18 months. This is the stage that I feel is the most important and which Attachment Parenting addresses best (in my opinion). This is the stage that sets a person’s worldview: Is the world safe? Can I trust others? Since an infant is dependent completely on others, the learning is based only on interactions with the world.

At this point in life, the brain is growing tremendously fast. The brain is not completely done growing until a person is around 21 years old…yes, years. Over those 21 years, different areas of the brain “come online” and then need to be trained and fully developed. During this stage, an infant’s brain has a rudimentary form of memory. The infant’s memory is of patterns (the biographical, story-based memory we typically think of doesn’t develop until 18-24 months of age). The more something is repeated, the stronger the impression. This means that parents can slip up here and there and it will usually not make a big impression.

When it comes to Trust v. Mistrust, an infant is looking for patterns like, do people come when I cry, am I held and loved, am I clean, am I comfortable, is there interaction, do I get what I need when I ask for it (based on only a cry), am I left to relax when I’m over stimulated, am I allowed to sleep enough, am I safe or do I need to be afraid? Based on the patterns of care, the child will learn 1) that the world is safe, 2) that it is safe in some circumstances but not others, or 3) that the world is not a safe place. The same pattern recognition can be attributed to different caregivers. You can see this when the child has a preference for a caregiver or has a significant reaction when they see a person that has not developed a pattern of safety for the child. (This is not to be confused with separation anxiety.) An infant will also prefer their dominant caregiver, whether it’s a parent or a nanny (and that can cause some hurt feelings, especially when Mom stays home and baby isn’t excited to be passed over to Dad when he gets home – this also has to do with infants preferring the facial features of females over males from birth).

One practice that really scares me when we talk about trust v. mistrust is Cry It Out. Let’s apply the pattern recognition and what is learned to that practice. A child has gone through their nighttime rituals (bath, feeding, rocking to sleep or to a drowsy state) and is placed into the crib. If the child awakens due to hunger or loneliness or the need to be changed and begins to cry, the parents may let the child cry for an amount of time, then enter the room to verbally soothe the child. The child is generally not to be picked up because that would teach them that crying gets them out of the crib. The child may only get a short amount of comfort before being left alone again. The time between comforting is increase between each visit and each night the intervals get longer for each step until the child is “sleep trained” and doesn’t cry – usually within 7 days (at least according to the Ferber method). What does a child learn from this pattern?

This is my take on it: A child cries because there is a need. Infants and children work on immediate gratification. They don’t have the brain development to delay a need. So, when a child cries and there is a delay for a response, the child may think the caregiver is not coming and may not feel safe. This has the possibility of increasing the initial need that the cry originated for and adding an aspect of fear or increased need for comfort. Then the caregiver arrives but does not give comfort/address the need or gives only a short duration of verbal and/or physical comfort (again, they are not to pick the infant up). The caregiver is supposed to leave before the child is asleep, even if they are crying, and not return for another interval of crying time that is longer than the last. Perhaps the infant learns that their needs are not important to the caregiver. This might lead to the learned pattern of “I’m not important” or “I’m not worthy”. It might also lead to the learned pattern of “My needs are not important”. Each child would learn something different based on the combination of their innate personality and the actual practices of Cry It Out. Learning these patterns can lead to an anxious or depressed child because they feel the world is not safe or that they are not worthy. It can also lead to withdrawn behaviors – less eye contact, less willingness to snuggle with caregivers, more pushing away and alone time (some parents see this “independence” as a positive trait in the child but this pulling away is meant to happen later in development).

I think the reason that Cry It Out “works” is that the child learns that the caregiver will not respond as needed, so they give up trying to ask for what they need. Here is an article that goes deeper into that theory. This would also translate into Mistrust of the world and the caregiver. Sadly, it also translates into mistrust of their own sense of what they need. Later in life, people that fall on the Mistrust side of the continuum (stemming from abuse, neglect, or parenting practices done with the best intentions) are likely to have relationship issues (not trusting others, not asking for help, not letting people in, not having truly emotionally intimate relationships, feeling or acting “needy” or not trusting their intuition and becoming involved in abusive relationships) and emotional issue (depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, isolation, being withdrawn in social situations). In addition, children who are left to cry it out “suffer long-lasting damage to their nervous system. As a result, they are more susceptible to post traumatic stress and anxiety disorders, including panic attacks.” And while the child is crying it out “his blood pressure and heart rate have soared excessively and needlessly because no one has opted to comfort him.”

With Attachment Parenting, the child’s needs are attended to swiftly. A crying child is picked up, held, fed, burped, changed, or soothed for as long or as many times as it is needed throughout the day. A child who is co-sleeping may not cry for more than a moment before being offered the breast. The child is already close to the caregiver, so comfort is immediately available. If comfort and feeding are not meeting the need, a parent will move on to other actions to check for other needs to be addressed. And the need for comfort may be eased at night because they baby was worn or carried much of the day.

What does this teach the child? My take on it is that the child learns a pattern of “If I am in need, my caregiver will take care of me and keep me safe”, “The world is a safe place”, “My needs are valid”, and “I am worthy”. This usually leads to emotional health and the potential for loving and emotionally intimate relationships throughout life.
Though it is a little stretch to include this, I found a short article on the “discovery” by Americans of attachment parenting in Japan in 1946. The conclusion was “if a child is well-mothered and well-guided by both parents, then the child given the best of all possible starts in life and seems well on his way to emotional stability.”