Why You Do The Things You Do provides the readers with the knowledge many different types of attachments a baby can develop depending on the parents’ interaction. The most interesting attachment to me was Avoidant Attachment. This means the parent completely disregards the child’s emotional needs. The child may be dealing with a broken heart, sadness, drama, hurt or anything else and the parent purposely decides not to pay attention to the child’s grieving. There are several reasons the parent avoids giving attention to the child during this time. The main reason is that the parent does not know how to deal with it. They may have came from a background where their own parents did not care enough to invest into their problems, or they just truly do not care about their child’s problems.
Once the child realizes they have no one to talk to about their problems they suddenly shut off. They then feel like they have no one to care about them and they subside the emotions. They decide to stop showing any feelings such as pain, heartache, etc. The child then does not feel like they need anybody in their lives to be happy so they proceed to focus on self-accomplishments.
An example of Avoidant Attachment would be a mom with a newborn baby. The mom is so focused on preparing for her child she forgets about all the attention her other children require. Then once the mom has the child her attention is devoted to her new born. She is so wrapped up in doctors appointments, to providing every need the baby has that she finds no time for her other children. The other children then feel abandoned and subside their emotional needs from their mom. Those kids then grow up with resentment towards the baby because they feel like he is the reason their mom abandoned their needs. This emotional problem will stick with them all throughout their lives.