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Zoe Fletcher TMA 02
H7683706
Early Interactions: Psychological Perspectives
Part one:
The importance of early interactions between young children and their carers: psychological
perspectives.
From the moment they are born, children learn a variety of new skills very quickly and form
important relationships with those around them that will shape their development into
adulthood. A strong positive attachment and emotional bond are crucial to support this, as
social deprivation on the child can have a profound negative impact on the advancement of
their social and emotional development. This essay will focus on the early interactions
between young children and their caregivers and will show with evidence from theories and
research, how their social and emotional sensitivity impacts their psychological growth.
The first relationships that a child will make are particularly important for establishing a
strong emotional bond that will support their psychological growth. Farrington- Flint (2020)
suggests that when children are born, they can recognise their own mother's voice and start
to recognise and react to familiar faces from a young age. Psychological research based on
the child’s reciprocal relationship with the mother has shown that it is important to be
responsive to the needs of the child to help form a strong healthy bond over time.
Responsiveness to crying, communication with the child and providing a warm and
comforting environment is an essential part of good parenting which allows trust and
confidence to build between the caregiver and baby ensuring their needs can be met. Baby
talk, known as ‘motherese’ (Bornstein, 2013) as cited in Farrington- Flint (2020), is used as a
gateway language between carer and child. Research has shown that this way of speaking to
a baby helps to develop their language by teaching them how to put parts of a sentence
together. Sensitivity towards the carer’s tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions
is felt by the child, so ensuring a warm positive environment as opposed to negativity such
as resentment and aggression is crucial in supporting dyadic interactions between child and
carer (Farrington- Flint, 2020). This idea is supported by the ‘Still- face’ experiment (The
Open University, 2020) as it shows how a child responds to the positive and negative
interactions with their primary caregiver. The child shows a positive emotional response
when interacting with the mother but the behaviour of the child changes negatively to
crying when the parent shows no emotion to the child. This experiment allows psychologists
to observe and evaluate the sensitivity of infants to the social and communicative cues of
caregivers.
Once a strong emotional bond is formed between the infant and the primary caregiver, a
secure attachment will be established. This type of positive attachment is needed to
influence the child’s development of social, emotional, and psychological skills and the lack
of good parenting behaviours can lead to an insecure attachment between the parent and
child. Parental attitudes, changes in the family structure, caregivers mental state and
cultural norms are all factors that can have an impact on the type of attachment that is
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Zoe Fletcher TMA 02
H7683706
formed. Protective factors such as family support and parental involvement can help to
counteract the adversity and vulnerability young children may face with their main caregiver
(Farrington- Flint, 2020). The attachment theory of John Bowlby (1969) discussed by
Farrington- Flint (2020) was based around the belief that children’s separation from their
mother at a young age is detrimental to adjustment later in life. He explored the idea that
children need to form a ‘deep and enduring bond’ (Bowlby, 1969) with their mother and
other close caregivers to ensure they had a safe base to return to in times of need and
distress. This provided the foundation for a relationship with strong emotional ties which
would go on to influence the social, emotional, and psychological development of the child
later in life. Bowlby’s theory is supported by the research of Mary Ainsworth and colleagues
(1978) who observed many mothers and children in the UK and Uganda to look at the
different types of attachment behaviours. Ainsworth found that regardless of their culture,
the pattern of reactions to being separated and then reunited with their mother was similar,
depending on whether they had a secure or insecure attachment (Farrington- Flint, 2020). It
is important to note that different social and cultural circumstances can shape attachment
relationships, and parents across the world can have quite different views of parenting.
However, so long as the attachment classification remains the same, so will the crucial bond
with the child (Farrington- Flint, 2020).
Farrington- Flint (2020), explains how understanding emotions, their own identity and other
people is an important milestone of a child’s development to help shape their social
awareness. From an incredibly early age, infants can show different emotions such as
sadness and happiness, they can express these by crying, laughing, and smiling. The next
stage is recognising the emotions of others which is achieved by developing their emotional
competence, and usually, by the age of 9 months onwards, a baby displays a wider range of
emotions such as joy, anger, surprise, interest, disgust, and fear. Once they have learned to
recognise their emotions, they can then develop the skills needed to control those emotions
which are learned through social interactions with others. Highly emotive relationships
create an awareness of emotions for children which allows them to express their emotions
more openly. Professor of Psychology, Dr Ross Thompson as cited in (The Open University,
2020) explains that research has been undertaken that shows infants are highly emotional
beings who respond to the social cues of others, his evidence claims that neglected babies
from as young as 10 months old have shown signs of depression, particularly when they
have a parent who is depressed. Research findings found that only 30% of parents
questioned thought that their child could sense if they were angry or sad (The Open
University, 2020). This evidence shows that infants are much more sensitive to their
surroundings than what is commonly thought, this could be because infants are unable to
communicate their thoughts and feelings verbally. 43% of parents questioned in research
thought that their children could control their emotions by age three, from this, Dr
Thompson suggests that children should be seen less as an ‘object of care’ and more of a
person with emotions, this could help parents understand how young children struggle to
regulate some emotions and need support learning this skill (The Open University, 2020).
When a child learns to cope with their own emotions and learns to accept that others have
