Approximate reading time: 27 min

So I must admit I have had a pretty good week, I have been on holiday for half of it so this has given me lots of time to write:-) I did spend two days working in a Holiday Club which was an experience in itself. There was an adorable 3-year-old boy there, (let’s call him Henry), who so beautifully displayed the typical Type C – Ambivalent attachment. (if maybe a little on the higher end of the scale)

The first time I notice Henry was in the morning as all the other children were coming in. There were three adults in the room so I was sitting on the carpet reading to a handful of children. I turned around to find out where a loud banging sound was coming from and that was the first time I saw darling little Henry. He was looking straight at me, with beautiful blue/green eyes and the cheekiest of grins. Henry was hitting a toy dinosaur on the table and very clearly making it known that he was wanting (needing) me to notice him. I tried asking him if he wouldn’t mind not ‘hurting the poor dinosaur’ and if he would like to come and join us for the story. He ignored me, and Dino got bashed even harder on the table. Later on, that day while we were walking down a flight of stairs I reminded the children to hold on to the railing. I had to smile to myself as Henry made the very deliberate point of moving as far away from the railing as possible.

(Ever defiant, even if it meant he was wobbling all over the place;-).

Henry came up to me twice to show me his middle finger while saying:

“Look the middle finger”

He clearly had no idea what that meant but he knew it was something he was not supposed to be doing and that it would get him the ‘negative reaction’ that he so desperately craved or so sadly, as is often the case, the positive reaction.

Ok, I wouldn’t typically include videos like these…but for the sake of making my point, I think it’s necessary:-)

(I promise I won’t judge you if you laugh;-).

I can see why people ‘would enjoy’ watching something like this.

A tiny, little human supposedly arguing like an adult.

I mean there is no denying that he’s adorable.

Hell, sometimes I WISH I could just watch stuff like this and laugh!

(My life would be a lot less stressful.)

But in all honestly, the first time I saw this video it just made my blood run cold.

Yes, of course, we can all tell that this woman is clearly joking and that she is not really angry at him. But a child this young doesn’t have the mental capacity to distinguish between ‘joke shouting’ and ‘real shouting’.

When I watch this all I see is a tiny human, with no real words available to him yet, trying to make himself understood.

All I see is his frustration, his little hands clenching and him trying to imitate what is being said to him.

(Random info: In baby sign language he is actually signing the sign which means ‘milk’. I’m not sure if that’s what he is intentionally asking for. But it’s worth thinking about)

All I see is his confusion as he looks around the room at everyone laughing.

(And videoing him)

All I see is a toddler learning that people shouting at him is normal behaviour or subsequently that him shouting back (or learning to perform for them) will bring him attention…

Perhaps it’s the teacher in me?

Maybe it comes from 23 years of dealing with so many angry frustrated little children who seem to have no way of knowing how to express their emotions in a calm and rational way.

Or who are confused when their ‘centre of attention antics’ don’t work with their peers.

Who feel rejected and lonely because other children don’t want to play with them…

It’s almost impossible for me NOT to project into the future and ask myself:

“How is this child going relate with others in 5 years time?”

It just feels too easy to laugh at this type of behaviour when they are cute, adorable little toddlers without actually giving a thought as to how this exact same type of behaviour is suddenly frowned upon when the child is a little older.

Today’s cute and adorably, funny, toddler tantrum is tomorrow’s nightmare child.

When toddlers learn that ‘behaving a certain way’ initiates laughter and delight from parents, they will continue with that behaviour.

It’s as simple as that.

Rant over

This type C strategy is known as Anxious Ambivalent or insecure-resistant and according to research, it affects about 12% of the general population.¹ When using Ainsworth’s Strange situation assessment these attachment types are generally quite anxious about exploring their environment independently. They will also seek greater proximity to their caregiver than other types, which can often result in them being very clingy. They typically have low self-esteem and a strong fear of rejection or abandonment which means that during the separation from their attachment figure they show intense separation anxiety and significant fear when approached by a stranger. On reuniting with their mother/father they would approach them but display rejecting behaviours which make it difficult for their parents to soothe or calm them down.

This type C attachment strategy develops when the tiny infant cannot predict their parent’s response to their attachment-seeking behaviour. Sometimes their parent might be attentive and attuned to their needs, other times they may react with anger or frustration, or perhaps not react at all. What these children are so sadly lacking in their attachment relationships is continuity. The strategies that they use are essentially all about managing this relationship with their caregivers. Because they never really know what it is they can expect from their caregiver they resort to using displays of emotion to try and regulate their carer’s behaviour.

With these children, it is essentially about them always having power. By using their emotions which can often be split (Ie they might try one emotion, and if that doesn’t work they will try another) they are ultimately trying to maintain their parent’s interest. Think of little Freddie in the supermarket who’s whining for sweets then turns into an angry tantrum…and then turns to tears. His tears finally elicit sympathy and get him what he wants. The first time Freddie tries this, and it works, he has begun creating his blueprint for future behaviour. He has learnt how to manipulate and co-herse his parents into getting his way.

This type C, cohesive strategy is essentially about drawing attention to themselves so that they can irritate or frighten the parent enough to change their behaviour, if that has worked intermittently then they will use it more extensively. What these children essentially need to do in order to feel safe is to create a context whereby they can use the same strategies that they use at home at school.²

The use of this strategy shows up in two distinct ways when looking at infants and young school children namely through threatening or disarming behaviours.

Children who rely on this more openly aggressive strategy are often the hardest pupils for teachers to work with. They can show up with explosive anger that aims at hiding their vulnerability. They display this type of ‘cartoon violence’ that is easy to laugh at but what you are not seeing is how frightened they actually are behind all this anger. Having patience with these types of children when you have a class of 30…is never easy. I have had so many different variants of these children.

In my first year of teaching, I had a little boy who used to turn around and punch anyone who was closest to him….if I didn’t allow him to answer a question. In my second year, I had another little boy…..who had to be removed from the class multiple times a day due to his violent temper tantrums. When he was eventually calmed down this poor child used to sob his eyes out while clinging to me and begging me not to tell his dad. One year a little girl, in year two, used to relish nothing more than climbing on the tables and kicking all the pencil pots off, for no particular reason at all. She would also bite, kick, and punch rarely showing any form of remorse. I could go on and on and on…… these cases are undoubtedly some of the worst examples and I am well aware that these children all came from homes with significant physical and emotional abuse in them. But sadly in this day and age, this is not always the case. Through the years I have noticed over and over again how some of the most entitled and aggressive children, appear to have the loveliest of parents.

Genuine, caring, concerned parents who clearly love their children wholeheartedly.

In her book, Raising Parents, Dr Patricia M. Crittenden explains:

“A particular difficulty for professionals is that the Type C strategy for reducing parental unpredictability improves parents’ behaviour (making the parent appear less deviant) while making the child appear extreme. Thus normal appearing parents bring in extremely disturbed children for diagnosis. Many professions see no need to assess parents’ psychological state when it is so obviously the child that is so abnormal. However, in cases where we have longitudinal information using DMM assessments, a developmental progression emerges.

It begins with unpredictable inattentive parents of infants.

By the pre-school years, the children are extremely vigilant, excessively active and sometimes risk-taking: this then makes the parents more attentive.

If parents habituate to their children’s behaviour then it becomes more extreme.

(eg: ” She is only doing it for attention, just ignore her!

= The behaviour has to increasingly escalate to get the same effect)

By the school years, the actively concerned parents have obviously troubled children whose behaviour is becoming dangerous” ²

These are the children that are drawn into mental health services with the focus being around “the child having the problem” and the parents being sensitive to their child’s needs. What we are not seeing is what is going on in the parent’s world that might elicit the uncertainty that the child has taken hold of. So attention is often placed on ‘strategies’ to improve the child’s behaviour when the focus really should be on the relationships that the child is experiencing.

Please note that this is not about parent blaming, because as I have written many times before…..we are all a product of our own upbringings. I will never forget speaking to a parent once about the positive reward systems we had put in place to help her daughter in year 1. Her daughter came into school every single day screaming and was generally very reactive and attention-seeking in class. I tried to explain to her mum that from this point on we were going to only focus on the positives and try ‘as much as possible’ to ignore her drama-like antics (that in hindsight was simply her strategy.) I think I said something like:

“From now on we are going to try our best to kill her with kindness”

I will never forget her mother’s rather sullenly almost irritated response:

“No one was ever kind to me growing up!”

I remember feeling shocked and mildly frustrated that this parent could even say something like that. Looking back I realise that as a young, inexperienced teacher I totally missed an opportunity to connect with the mother on a deeper, emotional level. To perhaps make a little space for her and her pain. She was almost certainly speaking the truth that she had never received any kindness growing up….and so sadly the cycle continues.

On the other end of the spectrum of course are those parents who are determined to be the exact opposite of their own parents. I recently spoke to a mother whose little girl was having astronomical tearful meltdowns every night. This mother knew that her daughter was simply over-tired and that she had taken on too many after-school activities. eg violin, tennis, soccer, drama and swimming. She was however adamant that if her daughter wanted to do something then she wasnt about to stop her. She believed wholeheartedly that her daughter needed to make those decisions herself. I knew enough about this mother to know that she had grown up with a particularly dominant, controlling mother and she was determined never to be that way with her child.

So she gives her daughter all the freedom in the world,

all the freedom she never had growing up.

Even if it means this poor little girl is overloaded and utterly exhausted.

This mum’s inability to set healthy boundaries for her child, and her fear of saying no to her mostly stemmed from her own experiences growing up.

Her conscious decision, never to be like her mother, simply meant she was creating a whole host of different issues for her own child.

And thus the pendulum swings

On the opposite end of this C- Strategy scale, children gain control of their parents in a manner that is more disarming. Instead of showing their anger these types of children will often do their best to hide it. The function of this strategy could be to disarm parental aggression with their adorable cuteness eg. Standing on his sister’s toy, and then smiling sweetly at mum.

These children have learnt how to manipulate their parents without the drama.

“I’m cute and adorable – so you will forgive my lack of cooperation!”

(The beginning of passive aggression.)

These are the toddlers that display clear signs of feigned helplessness and clinginess. They often have this coy look that is both shy and dismissive but also inviting in a way that says ‘Please come here, love me….but I’m a little fearful, please be careful’

(Hence the use of the term ambivalent.)

The effect that this strategy has is that it essentially makes them seem vulnerable and like they need to be protected at all costs.

There is a similarity between the ‘coy’ look and the flirting look that adults often use….(although this isn’t to say that the child is flirting). You might often hear people who abuse children say that the child had ‘invited their sexual abuse.’

This is most definitely not the case at all.

Sadly the signals being sent out by these children are being misinterpreted as sexual signals similar to those that adults might send out. The irony is that these children are simply using this disarming C strategy in the hopes of drawing other people in so that they can essentially keep themselves safe.

Using this strategy doesn’t mean that these children don’t feel anger, but that they have learnt how to keep it hidden.

It has been my experience in schools that as these children get a little older their passive-aggressive anger starts eeking out in the classroom. All of a sudden they find themselves in a setting where they are suddenly expected to do things that most other schoolchildren would normally do.

Like ‘Greeting the teacher, saying please or thank you, and tidying up after themselves.

If they end up with teachers that buy into their strategy and allow them to get away with not doing these things….their entitlement grows. And truth be told, when you have a class of 30 children sometimes it’s easier for teachers to just ‘let it go’.

Ok, think I’m done…..

Well, no Im probably not, but I’ve pretty much been writing for a week and I need to get this post up tonight!

(I made a promise to myself that I will post one post every week!

So tonight is my deadline!)

Although I definitely think I am more of a Type A strategy

(Which will be my next post)

I do also relate to a lot of the Type C stuff…..

so at the moment I’m slightly confused….

Lucky for you all, Neurotic Angel is not going to be scribbling all over tonight’s list.

Adult Type C’s in relationships

Taken from the Attachment project)³

ps I need to say a BIG THANK YOU to my Lecturer Dr Benedict Grey for his awesome lecture notes!! 😉

I stole most of this post from him!

Credits

1. Universality claim of attachment theory: Children’s … – PNAS (no date). Available at: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1720325115 (Accessed: November 3, 2022).
2. Crittenden, P.M.K. (2016) Raising Parents: Attachment, representation and treatment. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
3. https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/secure-attachment/