Spending quality time: The importance of secure attachment in childhood

 By Eliza Han, MEd., MA, AThR

The school holidays are here finally, and this seems to be the ideal time for parent-child bonding. Many parents intuitively understand that we need to spend time with our children, as spending quality time is commonly recognised as one of the five love languages that our children long for in a fulfilling parent-child relationship[1]. But why do we need to spend time with our children? Is it not enough that we are already spending time taking care of their daily needs, like meals, commutation, and health? How much time is enough, when there are one thousand and one things fighting for a parent’s attention?

I have seen in my 20 years of past experience in education, and also in my recent experience in art therapy, parents who came to me at the brink of breakdown, uttering similar lines as the ones below:

“I don’t have time to supervise him; I work very long hours.”

“I already spend so much time at home as a housewife, how much more time do I need to spend with her?”

“I am a single parent, and I need to work. My mother cares for him most of the time.”

As a fellow working parent, I feel their frustrations too. When the scarce resource time has to be shared between work, errands and chores, it is often the people you live with that receive the loose change of your time. Scraps of time like exchanges at breakfast, conversations during the car ride, stories at bedtime are hardly enough, but that is considered the only quality time we can afford on a day-to-day basis. And there are parents who do not even get to see their children at all as they are not up yet before their children go to school, and not home by the time their children sleep, simply because of difficult work arrangements, like shift work or sole provider with multiple jobs. With time a luxury, how much time is actually enough?

Perhaps we have to first understand what is so important behind the time spent with our children. Is it determined by the hours and minutes that are clocked? No, it is measured by the moments of complete and undivided attention devoted to the child. The time that you spend yelling at your child to get ready for school or eat breakfast or do homework does not count. Neither does the mutterings of “How is your day” while checking your texts on the handphone or watching TV matter.

Why is it so important to give our children our undivided attention? It makes children feel valued, secure, and safe. When children feel secure in the presence of their parents, they are able to form secure attachments with them. According to attachment theory, when children are securely attached to their caregivers, they are more confident, have better self-esteem, and are more protected against problems in later life[2]. How they become securely attached is through responsive caregiving, such as reciprocating signals of the children’s needs through eye contact, physical touch, physical care, emotional expression etc[3]. This helps children regulate difficult emotions like fear and anxiety, resulting in greater confidence to deal with future distress[4].  Responsive caregiving is best achieved through giving our children undivided attention. Another term for this responsive caregiving is called attunement, and it is connected to secure attachment[5].

What is the downside to children being not securely attached? They feel anxious, abandoned, and lost. They have difficulties with emotional regulation and forming quality relationships in later life as they learnt that their needs will not be acknowledged or cared for[6].They might become anxious or avoidant in their relationships, causing misunderstanding and challenges in interacting with significant others.

How do we prevent this from happening to our children? Let us start by giving our children undivided attention and responsive care. Let us attune ourselves to our children’s needs and spend quality moments with our children, rather than just distracted hours and minutes doing other things while attending to our children. Let us allow our children to be securely attached to us through acknowledging and attending to their needs.

One of the easiest ways to give our children what they need emotionally and mentally, is to play with them. Play is crucial to child development because it supports the holistic well-being of children and offers a safe opportunity for parents to fully attune with their children[7]. As an art therapist, what is helpful to me when I run parent-child dyad sessions, is that I take the attitude of playfulness when inviting parent and child to interact with the art materials provided, or to gamify my art directives. Sensory play is often included into my artmaking directives, so that both parent and child can be fully immersed in the experience and be fully attuned to each other. This creates an opportunity for the children to attach themselves securely to their parents, as they learn to trust and enjoy the process with their parents.

This holiday, I would like to invite you to have fun bonding with your child through sensory art making activities. Some ideas include having fun with slime, foam, music instruments, home-made dough, and even bubbles!

If you are clueless on how to start, you can join us at The Heart Therapy Space for parent-child therapeutic artmaking. We design artmaking activities that excite and engage different senses each session, such as sight, smell & taste, hearing & movement, and touch, invoke the child’s sense of wonder and curiosity through therapeutic art making. Some activities include gallery walk, narrative creation, rhythmic movements and sensory play. You can now take the opportunity to bond with your children through sensorial play and meaningful reflections and creative narratives of the art making process. 

[1] Chapman, G. (2016) The five love languages. CreateSpace Independent.

[2] Hong Y. R., Park J. S. (2012) Impact of attachment, temperament and parenting on human development. Korean Journal of Pediatrics. 55(12):449-54. doi: 10.3345/kjp.2012.55.12.449

[3] As above.

[4] The Attachment Project. (2022, April 25) Insecure Attachment & Emotional Dysregulation in Relationships. https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/insecure-attachment-emotional-dysregulation/#:~:text=Secure%20Attachment%3A%20Emotion%20Regulation,in%20handling%20threats%20or%20danger.

[5] Child Development Institute. (2018). The power of attunement. https://cdikids.org/autism/power-attunement

[6] The Attachment Project (n 4)

[7] Ginsburg, K. R., Committee on Communications, & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2007). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Pediatrics, 119(1), 182-191.