Assessments of child-parent attachment at six years of age
Developed a scale for measuring the child-parent attachment of children. The scale placed individuals into one of four categories. The first three of these were equivalent to Strange Situation classifications for infants. The fourth was the equivalent of the insecure/disorganized infant classification. Following on from Main and Solomon (1986), children in this fourth classification were also allocated a secondary classification corresponding to one of the first three styles
| Secure |
Show some genuine pleasure in the parent.
Initiate interaction or are readily responsive to her.
Interactions are personal, warm and intimate. |
| Insecure/avoidant |
Avoid the parent in a non-confrontational manner.
Limit interaction with the parent, but not to the extent that they appear hostile. |
| Insecure/ambivalent |
Show elements of sadness, fear, hostility and avoidance.
Ambivalent about seeking proximity. |
| Insecure/controlling |
Either take confrontational control of the parent and may reject her punitively.
Or attempt to care for or comfort the parent. |