Attachment Security in Divorced Families

Nair and Murray (2005) found that authoritative parenting style made significant contribution to attachment security in preschool children. Authoritative parenting style may be analogous to warm, responsive, and cooperative parenting style that nurtures security in children.

Nair and Murray recruited 58 dyads of children and mothers from preschools to survey the difference between intact families and divorced families in attachment security of children. Although children in divorced families had lower attachment security scores than those in intact families, divorce is not found to be a cause of insecurity in children, but rather stress, depression, spousal conflict and lack of social support after the divorce may result in less optimal parenting style toward children, thus resulting in attachment insecurity in children.

Mothers from divorced families were found to be younger, have lower annual income, and less education level than mothers from intact families. Also, divorced mothers have more stress from daily hassles, are more likely to be depressed, in need of social support, and experience more conflicts with their former spouse, compared to mothers from intact families. However, according to regression analyses, maternal demographic and psychological variables did not have relation with the measure of attachment security in children.

The study also found that children in divorced families had difficult temperament, compared to counterparts in intact families. Children with difficult temperament tend to have irregular eating and sleeping routines, withdraw from new experiences, adapt slowly to changes, and have intense reactions
of a negative nature.