Parents give children too much attention yet are worried

Parents today spend more time with their children than ever before. Yet, at the same time, they worry more than previous generations about doing enough – believing a lack of engagement may harm their child’s future success and wellbeing.

- AMY BROWN

This can have negative impacts. Increased social pressures on mothers to be engaged with their children, compared to fathers, is negatively affecting maternal well-being. The Covid-19 pandemic and home schooling intensified this.

This raises an important question: how much attention is enough? Is it harmful to leave your child to their own devices? Should you ever ignore a child? Or conversely, can you overly engage with your child? As is usually the case with child development, the answer is somewhere in the middle (and most parents, reassuringly, are doing “enough”).

We know that a supportive parenting approach is important for child development. Attachment theory states that when a baby has its needs met by a parent or primary caregiver in an appropriate and consistent way, they are more likely to go on to develop a secure attachment to that person.

This helps them to feel more confident in themselves and the world, leading to more positive cognitive, social and emotional development. However, while secure attachment is important, ever rising levels of attention won’t necessarily increase it proportionally. Instead, it is important to carefully consider the degree of engagement and balance this with supporting children to reach appropriate stages of resilience and independence.

One piece of evidence which gets dragged up a lot when attachment is discussed is research on the outcomes of children placed in Romanian orphanages. These children were typically significantly deprived of interaction, affection and care and did not have opportunity to develop a secure attachment. Studies of their later development found that they had poorer physical, cognitive and social developmental outcomes.

These studies are important, but a world away from the spectrum of parental engagement that most parents worry about today.