Attachment-Focused Parenting and Why It Matters

Attachment has been a buzzword word in therapy, parenting and relationships for some time, and there is a reason for this. The evidence overwhelmingly supports attachment theory in practice. Attachment-focused parenting has been the foundation for caring for children through foster care and adoption for some time, due to the trauma a child experiences when separated from their birth family. Many of the best attachment-focused parenting books began in this field. Over the last 10-20 years, these ideas and concepts have moved into mainstream parenting.

Preventing Childhood Emotional Neglect and Developmental Trauma

You might be wondering why attachment-focused parenting is so important? At its heart, attachment-focused parenting is one of the most protective factors against childhood emotional neglect, developmental trauma, and the relational patterns that can follow into adulthood. When a child’s feelings and needs are consistently seen, heard, and responded to, they begin to develop a secure sense of self. They learn that their inner world matters, that emotions can be tolerated, and that relationships can be safe and supportive. When this does not happen, whether through emotional neglect, misattunement, or more overtly narcissistic or unavailable parenting, a child often adapts by disconnecting from their feelings and needs. These adaptations are intelligent and protective at the time, but later in life may show up as anxiety, people-pleasing, perfectionism, relationship difficulties, or coping strategies such as emotional eating and other self-protective behaviours. From this perspective, attachment-focused parenting is not about being perfect. It is about being present, responsive, and willing to repair. It is about learning how to recognise and respond to a child’s emotional world, helping them to feel safe in themselves and in relationship with others. In this way, we are not only supporting a child in the present, but also helping to prevent the development of the very struggles that so many adults bring into therapy.

Attachment Injuries and Adult Struggles

Most people come to therapy because of attachment injuries, often covered up by symptoms of anxiety, addiction, attention deficit disorders (ADD/ADHD), depression, disordered eating or relationship problems. The attachment relationship we have as a child with our primary caregivers is the foundation for the way we relate and connect as an adult with self, others and the world. Attachment-focused parenting is best informed by the work we do as parents from the inside out, and by repairing our own attachment injuries. This healing can take place within the therapeutic relationship and the secure frame held by therapists in ongoing therapy.

Emma Cameron writes,

“Emotional learning needs to be experienced, it needs to be felt on a bodily level. This is because the parts of the brain that are most crucial for emotional learning are not very well accessed by what therapists call ‘top down processing’ (cognitive stuff like learning from books, teachings or thinking)…. The other thing about emotional learning is that often, much of it happens within a relationship between two people.”

Reparenting Yourself and Healing Attachment Wounds

This is why attachment-focused parenting is not only relevant for raising children, but also for the therapeutic work of re-parenting the self and healing early relational wounds. These books are not just for parents of young children. They can also be powerful resources for adults who are wanting to better understand their own attachment history and begin to relate to themselves in a more compassionate and attuned way. Reading them can support you to recognise your own unmet needs, understand your emotional patterns, and begin to “be with” yourself in the way you may not have experienced growing up. In this sense, attachment-focused parenting becomes an internal process. We begin to develop an inner secure base, learning how to respond to our feelings with care rather than criticism, and how to meet our needs with awareness rather than avoidance. This is often an essential part of healing from emotional eating, disordered eating, and other self-protective strategies that developed in response to early relational experiences.

Attachment Parenting Books for Awareness and Healing

In addition to doing your own bottom-up and reparative work around your attachment history, and regardless of whether your child is a baby, a teenager or an adult, the following books are useful for building awareness and skill. Some of my greatest “aha” moments came from reading attachment-focused parenting books. Using the Circle of Security Parenting term, to “be with”, attachment-focused parenting will help you to meet your child and “be with” them in a supportive and empathic way. It will enable you to help your child build an internal secure base, emotional resilience, and the freedom to explore the world in a healthy and relational way. As a therapist and clinical supervisor, I also recommend these books to other therapists and to my clients as a resource for building awareness and skill, not only in parenting their children, but also in parenting their inner child and the many other younger, unseen parts of themselves

Emma Cameron writes,

“Emotional learning needs to be experienced – it needs to be felt on a bodily level. This is because the parts of the brain that are most crucial for emotional learning are not very well accessed by what therapists call ‘top down processing’ (cognitive stuff like learning from books, teachings or thinking)….The other thing about emotional learning is that often, much of it happens within a relationship between two people.”

In addition to doing your own ‘bottom up’ and reparative work around your own attachment injuries, and regardless of whether your child is a baby, a teenager or an adult, the following books are useful for building awareness and skill building. Some of my greatest aha moments came from reading attachment focused parenting books!

The Best Attachment Focused Parenting Books: Building a Secure Base

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment

By Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Helle

I’m starting with Attached because it is the most accessible book on attachment that I’ve read in a very long time and it’s one that I recommend to all of my clients.

In this book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller explain why why some people seem to engage in relationships easily, while others struggle.

Pioneered by psychologist John Bowlby in the 1950s, the field of attachment argues that each of us behaves in relationships in one of these ways:

• People with an anxious attachment style are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about the other’s ability to love them back
• People with an avoidant attachment style equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness
• People with an anxious-avoidant (disorganised) style swing between both of the above
• People with a secure attachment feel comfortable with intimacy and are more consistently warm and loving

By reading Attached, you will discover how an understanding of adult attachment can help you to find and sustain healthy relationships. Having an understanding of your own attachment style will offer a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections with the people you love.

Raising a Secure Child

By Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, and Bert Powell

With an overload of information out there, parents today often feel pressured to be perfect. In Raising a Secure Child, the authors say that by striving to do everything right, we risk missing what children really need for lifelong emotional security.

For the first time, the simple and powerful “Circle of Security” parenting strategies that Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, and Bert Powell have taught thousands of families are available in this self-help book. You will learn how to protect and nurture babies through teens while fostering their independence, and also what emotional needs a child may be expressing via their behaviours.

There are stories and unique practical tools in this book to offer insight into how your own upbringing affects your parenting style and this book provides information about what you can do about that.

Raising a Secure Child puts the keys to healthy attachment within your reach—self-understanding, flexibility, and the willingness to make and learn from mistakes.

Parenting From The Inside Out

By Daniel Siegal, M.D and Mary HartZell, M.Ed

In Parenting from the Inside Out, early-childhood expert Mary Hartzell and child psychiatrist Dan Siegel, explore how your own childhood experiences influence the way you parent.

Drawing on new research in neurobiology and attachment, the authors explain how interpersonal relationships affect the development of the brain, and offer a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of your own history, which will help you to raise compassionate and resilient children.

Siegel’s cutting-edge neuroscience research combined with Hartzell’s 30 years of experience as a child-development specialist and parent educator, Parenting from the Inside Out will guide you through creating the necessary foundations for secure and loving relationships with your children.

Attachment Focused Parenting: Effective Strategies to Care for Children

By Daniel Hughes

Having attended a one-day Masterclass with Dan Hughes, he is my parenting guru and this book is definitely my parenting bible; it’s one of the best attachment focused parenting books there is.

‘Attachment security and affect regulation have long been buzzwords in therapy circles but many of these ideas—so integral to successful therapeutic work with kids and adolescents—have yet to be effectively translated to parenting practice itself. Moreover, as neuroscience reveals how the human brain is designed to work in good relationships, and how such relationships are central to healthy human development, the practical implications for the parent-child attachment relationship become even more apparent.’ – Google Books Review.

At the heart of our relational, emotional, psychological and spiritual health and well-being, is our ability to form secure, healthy and balanced attachment relationships. By focusing on the attachment relationship first and foremost, it will help you to deepen the parent-child bond and provide a secure based from which the child can confidently explore their world. Attachment Focused Parenting will help you learn all about how to do that!

Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain

By Sue Gerhardt

‘Gerhardt, has bravely gone where most in recent years have feared to tread. She takes the hard language of neuroscience and uses it to prove the soft stuff of attachment theory’. – Rebecca Adams, Guardian Book Review.

Sue Gerhardt is a psychotherapist in private practice; she is a leading specialist in mothers and babies. Why Love Matters is evidence based and provides an eye opening view of the baby’s brain, psyche and how these develop in relation to separation, bonding and attachment. Gerhardt links early childhood attachment and development with childhood and adult issues such as anxiety, depression, addictions, eating disorders and so forth. This book is a must for understanding the importance of attachment and is a valuable resource for making conscious choices regarding the care and well-being of your child.

Read more in my blog about Why Love Matters.

Hold On to Your Kids

by Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Maté

Attachment is not only formed in early childhood, it must be protected and prioritised throughout development. In Hold On to Your Kids, Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté explore how modern culture has shifted children away from parental attachment and towards peer orientation, often at a cost to their emotional wellbeing and development.

When children look to their peers rather than their parents for connection, guidance and identity, they can lose the secure base needed for healthy development. This can contribute to anxiety, disconnection, and difficulties with self-regulation and relationships.

Neufeld and Maté emphasise the importance of reclaiming the parent-child relationship as the primary attachment bond. Through warmth, presence and connection, parents can help their children feel safe, seen and supported, strengthening emotional resilience and a secure sense of self.

This book is a powerful reminder that attachment is the foundation for healthy development, and that preserving this connection is one of the most important things we can offer our children.

No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

By Dan Siegel and Tina Bryson

Attachment theory as the basis for parenting has been used for many years to help build connection in families who have found each other through foster care and adoption – Dan Siegel now brings this way of parenting into the mainstream. This is vitally important as there is a plethora of research emerging to back up the fact that disturbances in our early childhood attachment relationships contribute to a multitude of other concerns, disorders and impact all future relationships with self and others.

Much like with Hughes’ work, Siegel suggests a framework of connection before correction. Punishment such as time out  – is out (because it leaves children feeling dysregulated) and time in – is in (because it creates connection and relationship)!

This book shows you how to discipline in a calm, loving, nourishing and empathic way – which in turn deepens the relationship and provides the child with tools for building life-long emotional intelligence.

Dan Siegel’s Whole Brain Child is also a wonderful resource.

First Steps in Parenting the Child Who Hurts

By Caroline Archer

First Steps in Parenting the Child Who Hurts is one of the best attachment focused parenting book resources for foster and adoptive parents, as it offers sensitive and practical guidance through the process of separation, loss and trauma in early childhood.

As an mother through adoption, Caroline Archer speaks from experience and provides good, practical advice and encouragement.

This book explores issues such as bringing your child home, childhood attachment and development, what to do when things don’t appear right, the impact of trauma and how to reparative parent.

If you are a parent with a child, teen or young adult who is struggling with their emotional and mental health, reach out for some Online Circle of Security Parent Coaching.