‘Love builds brains’: representations of attachment and children's brain development in parenting education material

Abstract

A focus on early brain development has come to dominate expert child rearing advice over the past two decades. Recent scholars have noted a reinvigoration of the concept of attachment in this advice and changes in the ways that attachment is framed and understood. The extent to which the concept of attachment is drawn on, the way it is framed, and the consequences for mothers, families and parent-child relationships is examined through a discursive analysis of a current Canadian parental education campaign. Findings support the argument that attachment is receiving a great deal of attention in brain-based parenting education programmes as children's emotional development becomes increasingly prioritized. Attachment is presented as needing to be actively and continually built through expert-guided empathetic and responsive parental behaviour, and is framed as crucial for the development of brain pathways that promote emotional strength and self-regulation in children. Attachment-building is also presented as requiring highly intensive parenting that falls overwhelmingly to mothers. The parent-child relationship that is envisioned is one that is instrumental, lacking in affect and conducive to the creation of ideal self-regulating neo-liberal citizens.

Parenthood and Well‐Being: A Decade in Review

“…Another key feature of the ideology is that children are seen as innocent and vulnerable, and parents are held accountable for protecting their children from any potential harms that undermine their adequate development (Nelson, ). These two assumptions make parents—especially mothers—feel as if they must attend to minute details of a child's physical, social, emotional and cognitive development to the point of exhaustion (Villalobos, ; Wall, ).…”

Salud mental infanto-juvenil y pandemia de Covid-19 en España: cuestiones y retos

“…En los niños de corta edad, existen dificultades añadidas, ya que su necesidad de cuidados imposibilita cumplir el aislamiento social tras el contagio de COVID-19, en caso de requerirlo ellos o sus figuras cuidadoras. La separación de los niños de sus figuras cuidadoras habituales desencadena reacciones ansiosas y de malestar emocional, como tristeza o irritabilidad (24). Se ha detectado que los niños que han sido confinados junto con sus familiares han sufrido menor repercusión psicológica que aquellos que han sido separados de sus cuidadores principales, bien por haber contraído la infección y estar ingresados o en cuarentena domiciliaria, o bien por haber perdido a uno de ellos por la infección; también por estar custodiados por organismos oficiales (8).…”

‘‘I Just Need a Job!’’ Behavioral Solutions, Structural Problems, and the Hidden Curriculum of Parenting Education

“…Instead, instructors implied that youth become involved in crime because something is missing at home. Their comments resonate with Wall’s (2018) account of parenting education materials that promote the notion that proper attachment can create “ideal neoliberal citizens” who are resilient, skilled in managing risks, and self-directed. Strong family bonds are likely helpful, but it is also clearly true that, as Tina noted, some young people raised in supportive homes nevertheless go “the wrong way.” Additionally, the fact that structural forces beyond parents’ control can interfere with a family’s emotional functioning went completely unacknowledged.…”