The Roots of Attachment, Part II: Parenting Styles and Childhood Attachment

Childhood attachment – the emotional bond between a child and their primary caregiver – forms the foundation of how people relate to others throughout their lives. While our personality traits tend to remain relatively stable, our attachment style starts to develop in direct response to our earliest experiences with the parenting style of the person or people who raised us and how they met our needs.

Understanding that this primary dynamic forms the root of your current attachment style can offer profound insights into the relationship patterns and tendencies that you’ve developed as an adult. The way you navigate your close relationships today reflects not only your personality but also the emotional lessons that you internalized from your earliest experiences growing up.

In the first article of this four-part deep dive into attachment styles, we reviewed the links between your caregiver’s personality and their parenting style. Now we turn to the next link in the chain: how their parenting style shaped your attachment as a child.

So let’s begin.

Understanding Childhood Attachment

Think of childhood attachment as a child’s emotional security system, which begins to form in infancy. Just as a home security system is designed to alert you when there’s danger, attachment behaviors like crying, reaching out, following, or calling out are meant to alert a caregiver to their child’s needs. These behaviors not only allow children to express themselves but are also meant to keep caregivers close. Through repeated interactions, a child learns which behaviors are most effective for getting their needs met. They also develop a sense of just how much they can count on their caregiver to be there for them when needed.

All this sounds like incredibly complex reasoning for a young child, but very little rational thinking is involved. Attachment behaviors are instinctive, and how children respond to their care or lack of care falls into predictable attachment patterns.

The Four Main Childhood Attachment Styles

In the 1970s, psychologist Mary Ainsworth built upon the work of her mentor, John Bowlby, who had begun research into childhood development two decades earlier. In doing so, she revolutionized our understanding of human attachment through groundbreaking research on the emotional bonds between children and their caregivers.

Her work culminated in the famous “Strange Situation” experiments, where Ainsworth and her colleagues observed how young children responded when briefly separated from their caregiver in an unfamiliar environment. These carefully designed scenarios revealed distinct patterns in how children cope with stress, seek comfort and safety, and look to have their emotional needs met. Researchers identified three distinct attachment patterns (and, in later versions of the experiments, a fourth) – patterns that would come to be known as childhood attachment styles.

These four childhood attachment styles are named to reflect what researchers could directly document – how children behave and respond to their caregivers. This differs from adult attachment categories, which focus more on internal relationship patterns and how people see themselves in relationships. Although both systems describe similar underlying emotional dynamics, the childhood classifications emphasize the concrete, observable parent-child interactions.

Keeping that in mind, let’s examine each of the four distinct attachment patterns that can emerge in early development.

Anxious Attachment

Children with an anxious attachment style are not confident that their caregiver will be available when they need them. They often appear clingy or demanding, showing intense distress during separations from their caregivers and difficulty calming down when they are reunited with their caregivers. Their attachment behaviors are amplified because they’ve learned that dramatic displays of need are more likely to get a response.

The following behaviors are common in children with anxious attachment:

Excessive clinginess
Difficulty separating from their caregiver
Intense emotional reactions
Trouble self-soothing
Reluctance to explore independently

Avoidant Attachment

Children with avoidant attachment appear surprisingly independent. They show little distress when separated from their caregiver and might ignore or avoid them when they are reunited. This isn’t because they don’t need comfort – instead, they’ve learned to suppress their attachment needs because showing them hasn’t proven helpful.

These are some characteristic behaviors of children with avoidant attachment:

Minimal emotional expression
Reluctance to seek help
A preference for playing alone
Limited seeking of physical contact
Acting unusually self-reliant

Disorganized Attachment

A disorganized attachment style emerges when children are unable to develop a consistent strategy for getting their needs met. These children show confused or contradictory behaviors, sometimes approaching their caregiver while simultaneously showing fear or resistance.

Here are some signs of disorganized attachment in children:

Inconsistent responses to their caregiver
Freezing or showing fear around their caregiver
Difficulty regulating their emotions
Unusual responses to comfort

Secure Attachment

Children with secure attachment feel confident that their caregiver will be there when needed. They show distress when they are separated from their caregiver but are easily comforted when they are reunited. These children feel safe exploring their environment because they trust that their “home base” – their caregiver – will be there if and when they need help or comfort.

The following behaviors are indications of secure attachment in children:

Seeking comfort when upset
Accepting comfort when it is offered
Returning to exploration after being comforted
Preferring a primary caregiver over other adults
Maintaining a healthy balance between independence and dependence

Secure attachment is considered the ideal of the four childhood attachment patterns. A securely attached child typically grows into an adult who can both give and receive love effectively, while other attachment styles will often create challenges in adult relationships.

Now we get to the really fascinating part of all of this. These childhood attachment styles develop in response to parenting styles, and we learned in the previous article in this series that those are at least somewhat influenced by personality traits.

How Parenting Styles Shape Attachment

Do you remember the four parenting styles that we discussed in Part I – authoritarian, permissive, indifferent, and authoritative? How about how each of those styles results from a caregiver’s levels of responsiveness and demandingness?

It turns out that each parenting style creates a distinct emotional environment that, in turn, influences how children learn to navigate relationships and handle their needs for connection and independence. That said, it’s important to remember that it’s not the only factor. Life circumstances, caregiving consistency, culture, and other environmental factors will also influence a child’s budding attachment patterns. So, keeping that disclaimer in mind, let’s look at how different parenting styles are typically linked to childhood attachment styles.

Authoritarian Parenting and Anxious Attachment

The combination of high demandingness and low responsiveness in an authoritarian parenting style is most often linked to an anxious attachment style in children. When caregivers consistently prioritize rules and obedience over emotional considerations or connection, children learn that the love and support they seek are conditional upon their behavior.

Let’s imagine a scenario where a two-and-a-half-year-old child is afraid of the dark, which creates an ongoing issue at bedtime.

An authoritarian caregiver might handle this bedtime fear in any of the following ways:

Dismissing the child’s feelings. “I don’t know why this is such an issue. There’s nothing to be afraid of!”
Enforcing bedtime rules without empathy. “You’re thinking too much about this. Just go to sleep.”
Using punishment to ensure their child’s compliance. “If you get up one more time, there will be no bedtime stories tomorrow night.”

This approach may leave children uncertain about their emotional needs and anxious about maintaining their caregiver’s approval. When children face a rigid, emotionally dismissive, authoritarian parenting style, they can develop a hypervigilant approach to relationships and their own emotions. They might internalize the way that their caregiver perceives their feelings – as either irrelevant or a source of trouble. This can potentially lead them to believe that something must be wrong with them for feeling scared or that they have to be perfect to deserve love and attention.

This can create a distressing pattern where children simultaneously crave emotional connection and feel intense anxiety about expressing their needs. Because their early attempts to seek comfort were often met with criticism or punishment, anxiously attached children become hypersensitive to any sign of disapproval and may develop excessive people-pleasing behaviors. The constant tension between their natural need for emotional support and their fear of rejection creates a persistent state of anxiety within their relationships that can follow them into adulthood.

Permissive Parenting and Mixed Attachment Outcomes

The high responsiveness and low demandingness of a permissive parenting style can lead to various attachment patterns, and this often creates confusion about boundaries and emotional regulation. While the children of permissive caregivers usually know that they’re loved, they might struggle with feeling genuinely secure in their relationship.

Here are a few common ways that a permissive caregiver facing bedtime fears might respond:

Offering unlimited comfort to their distressed child. “I know you’re afraid of the dark in your room, so you can sleep in my bed whenever you want.”
Skipping establishing routines. “Bedtime is always a challenge, so you can go to sleep whenever you’re tired.”
Avoiding any distress. “I’ll stay up with you until you’re not scared.”

For some children, this unlimited availability and lack of structure can foster an anxious attachment style. These children often learn that dramatic emotional displays usually get an immediate response from their caregiver, but they may fail to develop essential self-soothing skills in the process. Over time, they might be unwilling or unable to manage intense emotions independently.

This reliance on external emotional regulation creates a cycle where children depend on their caregiver to help them navigate their upset feelings, ultimately contributing to heightened anxiety and a lack of motivation to develop their own emotional management skills.

Other children might develop an avoidant attachment style if they interpret this excessive permissiveness as a sign that their caregiver can’t provide the genuine guidance and support that they seek. If a caregiver can’t set limits for their child or handle their child’s distress, that child might conclude that they can’t really count on the caregiver when they truly need help. This could cause the child to become overly self-reliant as a protective measure.

Indifferent Parenting and Avoidant or Disorganized Attachment

When a parenting style is low in both responsiveness and demandingness, children are more likely to develop either an avoidant or disorganized attachment style. Without consistent care or attention, they may learn to suppress their needs entirely (avoidant attachment), or they may develop chaotic ways of seeking connection (disorganized attachment).

When dealing with a small child who struggles at bedtime, a caregiver with an indifferent parenting style might resort to behaviors like these:

Ignoring the child’s fears completely. “Stop fussing. I’m watching a movie.”
Responding inconsistently or minimally. “You can come sit with me, but be quiet.”
Showing irritation at being needed. “You always interrupt my evening plans!”

Children who develop avoidant attachment in response to this parenting style learn early on that their emotional needs are unwelcome interruptions or inconveniences. They begin to view vulnerability as pointless or even dangerous. They may come to feel that there is no use asking for help because no one will respond anyway. These children often become experts at masking their needs and emotions, developing a facade of complete self-sufficiency as a survival strategy.

In other cases, the unpredictability of indifferent parenting can lead to disorganized attachment. When children can’t make sense of whether or when their caregiver might respond – providing attention one day and cold rejection the next – they may develop conflicting internal models of relationships. They might desperately want connection while simultaneously fearing it, leading to erratic patterns of seeking and rejecting comfort. If they need help, they may not ask for it, having learned that asking for help is risky. They may want comfort, but in their experience, getting close to others can be dangerous. This results in deeply confusing emotional responses that can persist into adulthood.

Authoritative Parenting and Secure Attachment

In authoritative parenting, high responsiveness meets high demandingness, and children in this situation are more likely to develop a secure attachment style. This makes perfect sense – these caregivers are more likely to consistently meet their children’s emotional and practical needs while maintaining appropriate boundaries.

Consider how an authoritative caregiver might handle their toddler’s fear of the dark:

Validating the child’s feelings. “I can see that you’re scared.”
Offering comfort and support. “I’m here with you, and I’ll help you figure this out.”
Helping problem-solve. “Let’s try plugging in this nightlight so you don’t feel like the dark is too dark.”
Maintaining the boundary. “It’s still bedtime, so let’s get you tucked back in.”

This more balanced approach usually helps children feel both safe and capable, creating the best foundation for secure attachment. Children who experience this consistent blend of comfort and gentle guidance are more likely to learn that the world is a safe place and that their emotional needs matter but aren’t overwhelming to their caregiver. They often internalize that it’s okay to feel scared or have difficult feelings and that they can count on help when they need it. Most importantly, they develop the belief that their caregiver believes in them and their ability to handle challenges.

This creates a positive feedback loop. When children trust that support is available, they feel confident enough to face new situations, and each successful experience reinforces their sense of security. The predictable mix of empathy and boundaries helps them develop emotional resilience and healthy dependence, allowing them to gradually build their emotional regulation skills while knowing that their “home base” remains available when needed.

Does a Child’s Personality Play a Role in Their Attachment Style?

Absolutely. A child’s innate temperament not only serves as the scaffolding around which their personality develops but also provides a framework for their attachment style to take shape. While parenting styles play a significant role in the development of attachment, a child’s innate traits also influence how they interpret and respond to their caregiver’s behaviors.

For instance, children with an emerging personality that tends toward Introversion could naturally turn inward for emotional regulation and are more sensitive to external stimulation. As a result, they may be more prone to developing an avoidant attachment style when faced with overwhelming demands. Children who are developing a more Extraverted personality, in contrast, often seek external stimulation and rely on social connection for emotional regulation. Considering this, they may be more likely to protest and develop an anxious attachment style under similar conditions.

Understanding that a child’s temperament and developing personality play a role in attachment helps explain why siblings raised in the same household sometimes develop different attachment patterns. It also helps explain why the link between parenting styles and childhood attachment styles is not a fixed, cause-and-effect relationship. Some children will develop a secure attachment style despite less-than-ideal caregiving and circumstances. Others, whose caregivers have a by-the-book authoritative parenting style, may develop an avoidant or anxious attachment style.

Not sure what personality type you have? Take our free personality test today to find out.

Personality, Parenting, and Attachment Styles: Reflecting on Your Personal Experience

So now we’ve come to the crossroads between your caregiver’s personality type and their parenting style, the emotional climate that you experienced as a child, and how your own emerging personality traits shaped your reaction to your environment. It’s here that your childhood attachment style was most likely laid as the foundation for the attachment style that now influences your approach to all of your relationships, especially romantic ones.

Remember, it’s not a direct one-to-one mapping. A caregiver’s personality type doesn’t guarantee a specific parenting style, and a parenting style doesn’t guarantee a specific childhood attachment style. Life circumstances, your caregiver’s own childhood experiences, cultural background, stress levels, and your own developing personality and needs all played significant roles in the attachment style that you later developed as an adult.

Keeping this in mind, we’d like to present you with a series of questions to help you contemplate all of this information in the context of your personal experience. We invite you to grab a notebook and take some time to ponder your formative experiences. And remember, you have flexibility in defining who your primary caregiver was. If you had multiple caregivers, you might want to consider each one individually. Once you’re ready, consider the following questions:

Reflecting on the four parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive, indifferent, and authoritative) as described above, which style or styles resonate most strongly with your perception of how your caregiver interacted with you during your childhood? How did their approach make you feel?
Considering the characteristics of the four childhood attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, disorganized, and secure), do any of these patterns remind you of how you typically behaved or felt as a child when seeking comfort, facing separation, or needing support from a caregiver?
Thinking about your caregiver, how might their own personality, life circumstances, stress level, or even their own upbringing have influenced their parenting style and the emotional environment that they created for you?
How do you think your own personality traits (e.g., being Introverted or Extraverted, Thinking or Feeling, etc.) might have shaped your early attachment patterns and influenced how you responded to your caregiver’s parenting style?
How might the attachment patterns that you developed in childhood manifest in your current close relationships as an adult? Do you notice any tendencies toward seeking reassurance (anxious attachment), strongly valuing self-reliance (avoidant attachment), experiencing confusion or inconsistency in closeness (disorganized attachment), or generally feeling secure and comfortable with interdependence (secure attachment)?

What’s Next? Moving Forward Toward a Secure Attachment Style

By exploring how your caregiver’s approach and personality influenced your early attachment behaviors, you’ve taken an important step toward recognizing the roots of your current relationship tendencies. These patterns, while established early in life, aren’t permanently fixed – they’re pathways that can be understood and, with awareness, gradually reshaped.

The reflective questions that we’ve provided aren’t just for intellectual exercise – they’re invitations to examine your past experiences compassionately, without judgment. Whether you recognize elements of anxious, avoidant, disorganized, or secure attachment in your history, this awareness creates space for growth and healing. Remember that attachment patterns exist on a spectrum, and most of us display a mixture of styles, depending on the context and dynamics of each of our relationships.

In the next article of this series, we’ll build on these foundations by exploring how understanding your personality tendencies can become a powerful tool for developing a more secure attachment style. We’ll offer practical, personality-aligned strategies to help you nurture healthier relationship patterns, regardless of your starting point. Your attachment style may have been shaped by your past, but with self-awareness and intentional practice, you have the capacity to create more fulfilling connections moving forward.