Middle Childhood Support‐Seeking Behavior During Stress: Links With Self‐Reported Attachment and Future Depressive Symptoms

Abstract

This study tested whether children's more anxious and avoidant attachment is linked to decreased support-seeking behavior toward their mother during stress in middle childhood, and whether children's decreased support-seeking behavior enhances the impact of experiencing life events on the increase of depressive symptoms 18 months later. Ninety-eight 8- to 12-year-old children filled out questionnaires assessing their level of anxious and avoidant attachment and depressive symptoms. Children's support-seeking behavior was observed through measuring the time children waited before calling for their mother's help while carrying out a stressful task. Results supported the hypothesis that more anxiously or avoidantly attached children waited longer before seeking maternal support. Moreover, waiting longer was related to increased depressive symptoms at follow-up in children who reported more experienced life events.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Children and Adolescents: Can Attachment Theory Contribute to Its Efficacy?

“…Third, at the level of the developmental context, longitudinal research suggests that insecure attachment and related lack of support seeking behaviour is only linked to the development of depressive symptoms when children are exposed to higher levels of distress. Less securely attached children do not develop depressive symptoms when they experience less distress during their development (Dujardin et al 2016).…”

“…Support seeking is also thought to be crucial to protect children against the maladaptive effect of distress encountered over time (e.g. Dujardin et al 2016). …”

“…First, with regard to emotion regulation strategies, there is abundant and robust evidence that insecurely attached children are at risk to develop emotional and behavioural problems because they fail to adequately regulate negative emotions (Brumariu 2015). While more securely attached children are more likely to seek attachment figure support as a protection against long-term maladaptive effects of distressing life events (Dujardin et al 2016), less securely attached children are less inclined to seek proximity and support (Dujardin et al 2016, Claes et al 2016). Instead, they start developing maladaptive strategies to regulate the negative emotions they experience during distress (Cassidy 1994).…”

“…Consequently, especially for mildly distressing challenges, it becomes most adaptive if children autonomously solve problems (Bosmans et al 2015a, b;Dujardin et al 2015). In contrast, for more severe distress, it becomes most adaptive if children learn to autonomously seek parental support (Dujardin et al 2016). With other words, middle childhood is a period of substantial attachment development during which children need to acquire the cognitive script and the related skills to enable them to actively seek support in this changed relationship (Mayseless 2005).…”

Attachment Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood: the Role of Repetitive Thinking about Negative Affect and about Mother

“…Consequently, theory suggests that maintaining a heightened focus on mother has a maladaptive effect on children's further development: it impairs their autonomy to freely explore information (e.g., Dujardin et al 2015) and their ability to apply ageappropriate strategies to deal with distress (e.g., Bosmans et al 2015). Instead, focusing on a mother that elicits fears for rejection and for absent care interferes with using strategies that help reducing distress (Cassidy 1994;Dujardin et al 2016).…”