But I do have a pretty hefty and poorly organized box of hold-in-your-hands snapshots from over the years. Plus, walking down memory lane completely melts my heart- those chubby cheeks and toothless smiles are so dang adorable! Between all those moments of sweetness and joy has equally been my own mistakes and frustrations. It pushes us to grow as human beings and tests the meaning of unconditional love.
This is its nature. You might have grown up in a family where it felt like the rollercoaster went only one direction- down. The first place to get started is with yourself- and a great place to begin is with your earliest years. Ask yourself: When I was a kid.. What were relationships like? What did I learn about family life? Are those the values and behaviors I want in my family today?
In work was started from a theorist named John Bowlby and expanded on by Mary Ainsworth. Together, their research birthed what we call Attachment Theory. It also teaches us that having healthy relationships requires self-reflection and self-awareness. Ainsworth placed a mother, her month infant and a stranger to the baby in various scenarios. The latter of these was broken down into 3 types of insecure: Anxious-avoidant, Anxious-ambivalent, and Disorganized.
Ainsworth found that mothers who had securely attached children responded in a nurturing and attuned present way with their baby.
She also found that almost all moms with insecurely attached children were themselves insecurely attached. So in a nutshell, relationship patterns stick with us and get passed on to our kids. Since the beginnings of attachment theory, there has been a mountain of research to validate it and information to give us helpful direction.
