ERIC Number: EJ1374793
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-May
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0165-0254
EISSN: EISSN-1464-0651
Young Children's Representation of People Who Are Elsewhere--Or Dead
International Journal of Behavioral Development, v47 n3 p265-274 May 2023
Given the legacy of John Bowlby, Attachment theory has often portrayed separation from a caregiver as likely to provoke protest, despair, and ultimately detachment in infants and young children. Indeed, the emotional challenge of separation is built into a key measurement tool of Attachment theory, the Strange Situation. However, James Robertson, one of Bowlby's leading collaborators, voiced dissent. He argued that young children can cope with separations--even when they last for several days or weeks. They are able to keep the absent person in mind provided an alternative, familiar caregiver remains available. Observational and experimental findings lend support to Robertson's claim. Recent analyses of natural language provide further support. Although young toddlers (ranging from 20 to 26 months) often make contact- or attachment-related comments about absent caregivers, such comments become less frequent with age whereas reflective references to absent caregivers--comments that do not express contact-related concerns about their absence--are often produced by young toddlers and remain frequent throughout early childhood. Children's early-emerging ability to keep an absent attachment figure in mind raises intriguing questions about their responses to the permanent absence of an attachment figure--as in the case of death. Consistent with contemporary research showing that many grieving adults report continuing bonds to a deceased attachment figure--rather than a gradual process of emotional detachment--children also report such continuing bonds. By implication, children and adults are prone to construe the death of a loved one not just as a biological endpoint that terminates the possibility of any continuing relationship but instead as a departure that can be bridged by a continuation of the earlier bond in an altered form.
Descriptors: Young Children, Death, Attachment Behavior, Concept Formation, Emotional Response, Parent Child Relationship, Family Relationship, Language Usage, Interpersonal Communication, Child Development, Grief
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A