Raising Securely Attached Kids: How to Foster Connection and Build a Lasting Bond

One of the biggest pressures we face as modern moms is raising securely attached children. We’ve come a long way as a society in terms of understanding mental and emotional health, unpacking trauma, and discovering important research about attachment and parenting. 

And with that knowledge has come a desire to parent in a different way, to break cycles, and to support our children on a deeper emotional level. 

Those goals are admirable—but we often find ourselves approaching them from a place of fear. We’re scared that we’re going to make too many mistakes. We’re scared that we’re going to mess our kids up. We’re scared that we’re not going to be remembered as the loving moms we want to be. And we’re scared that we’re going to negatively impact our children’s long-term mental and emotional health. 

But often healing ourselves and looking within can pave the way for cycle-breaking and changing the way we show up. 

So how can we be sure that we’re raising securely attached kids? How can we form strong bonds and relationships? How can we support our children and ourselves emotionally? 

This week on the Momwell Podcast, I’m joined by licensed therapist and author Eli Harwood, founder of Attachment Nerd, to discuss how to foster secure attachment and build strong, lasting relationships with our kids. 

Attachment Styles and Their Impact on Parenting and Relationships 

Eli was always fascinated by attachment research, first as a therapist and later as a mom herself. But she noticed that while the information was valuable, it was often inaccessible and difficult to interpret. She began producing content to help parents understand attachment research in a digestible way. 

Eli defines attachment as an instinct and drive to have and keep close relationships. 

Whether or not we are securely attached begins with our childhood experiences and the relationship we have with our caregivers early on. Those experiences later shape the way we show up in our romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships, and ultimately our relationships with our children. 

Our attachment style often comes out when we feel backed into a corner. 

If we were raised by a caregiver who shut down our emotions or reacted angrily when we expressed them, we learned that emotions are bad and that we should protect ourselves from them. If we grew up in a home where we were abandoned emotionally, we learned that our loved ones aren’t going to show up or support us. 

Our attachment style often comes out when we feel backed into a corner, dictating the way we react. Eli said that there is ongoing research that looking back at what we experienced in our childhood and understanding our own coping patterns can help us learn more secure ways of building present relationships. 

Why Our “Attachment Style” Doesn’t Matter As Much as We Think

Eli pointed out that we often get so caught up in what “style” we are or what we’re passing on to our children that we forget a very important aspect of attachment—our attachment style can be learned, built, and shaped over time. 

There are four primary attachment styles:

• Dismissive or avoidant attachment: This often happens when our caregivers ignored our emotional needs or told us to “just get over it” when we expressed our feelings. 
• Anxious attachment: This style happens when our caregiver smothered us, overprotected or over involved themselves, or showed an ongoing state of panic and worry. 
• Disorganized or fearful attachment: This often happens when our caregivers intimidated us with threats or parented using fear to achieve compliance or shut down our emotions. 
• Secure attachment: This happens when our caregiver remained steady and calm, and offered genuine care and concern about our emotional needs. 

It can be helpful to understand these styles, but more from a standpoint of how our upbringing shaped us rather than defining ourselves by the labels. Attachments styles aren’t fixed or exclusive. We all might have moments of feeling insecure, fearful, or anxious. We might have grown up with caregivers who shaped us in different ways at different times.

We can think of attachment styles not as “types” that define us but as default settings. 

Eli said that we can think of attachment styles not as “types” that define us but as default settings that can be adjusted. We can build secure attachment for ourselves, even if we weren’t raised with emotional connection and strong attachment patterns. 

Why Self-Healing Is Vital for Raising Securely Attached Kids

Because our past is so vital to our attachment patterns and the way we show up for our children, healing and self-work is a big piece of the puzzle. 

Healing and self-work is a big piece of the attachment puzzle.

Exploring our relationship with our caregivers, how we were parented, and our own attachment issues can help us reconnect with ourselves, break those cycles, and show up the way we want to for our children. 

We can rewire ourselves away from those default patterns through self-work, therapy, self-acceptance, and nervous system work. As we do, we can start showing up more securely in our relationships. 

When we struggle with attachment, we might find ourselves anxious that our partner or loved ones are going to abandon us. We might feel uncomfortable with tension or conflict, feeling the need to manage everyone’s emotions around us. We might sweep issues under the rug out of fear of expressing our emotions. 

But with healing, we can learn to trust our own worthiness and understand that not all disconnection leads to danger. 

We can learn secure patterns, unburden ourselves from our past, and ultimately change the way we show up. Working on ourselves first can help us strengthen our own emotional awareness and build stronger, more secure attachment within all of our relationships, including those with our children. 

4 Strategies for Raising Securely Attached Kids

We often hear a lot of advice about showing up with empathy and supporting our children. But the ultimate goal of empowered parenting is building a secure relationship and attachment with your child. 

Our relationship with our child is the foundation that we need to focus on. Eli said that when we establish synchronicity, trust, and connection with our children, all of the other aspects of gentle parenting can follow. 

We might not know where to start with fostering that relationship or how to measure it. But Eli said that we can focus on four simple areas as a guide:

• Lighting up exuberantly when our children come into our presence: Whether it’s first thing in the morning or after any kind of separation throughout the day. 

• Showing up for their tender moments and their personal triumphs: Comforting them when they are down, exhibiting pride and excitement at their accomplishments and growth, and showing them that we will be there for them in the ups and downs of life. 

• Listening when they are talking: When our kids talk to us or share their experience, focus on what they are saying and show them that you are listening and will hear them.

• Make up when we mess up: When we get out of sync, reconnect and repair. 

When we focus on these four areas, we can build a strong, lasting, secure relationship with our child. 

But it’s also important to remember that we are only human—we won’t be able to do all of these things perfectly every time. We might be groggy in the morning after a long night or focused on an important task that we can’t stop when our children want to share a story. That’s okay—we don’t have to hit every point in every single moment. 

You don’t need to be perfect to build a secure attachment. 

You don’t need to be perfect or give every single moment of your time, energy, and focus to your children in order to build a secure attachment. The goal is to create a pattern of reliability that your children can trust and believe in—this leads to ongoing attachment and a secure relationship. 

How Temperament Affects Secure Attachment

It’s also important to remember that building strong relationships and secure attachment means meeting our individual child where they are at.

Eli said that it takes different levels of regulation to relate to our unique children. She pointed out that temperament and attachment have a one-way relationship. Attachment doesn’t affect our child’s temperament—the way you parent your child isn’t going to change who they are. But temperament can affect attachment. 

We might find it harder to get in sync with our children who are highly sensitive or have a more intense temperament. Eli said that most of us with multiple children have one child who is easier to get in sync with, but that each of our children needs something different. Our job is to become attuned to those needs. 

Each of our children needs something different. Our job is to become attuned to those needs. 

For example, he shared that one of her children really enjoys cuddling, kissing, and physical affection. But another of her children finds that overwhelming and uncomfortable. She had to adapt her parenting and show up differently for each child. 

How our children are wired is going to require something different of us in order to get in sync with them. Sometimes we might need extra support in this area, especially if our children are neurodivergent. 

But we can show up for meltdown moments, big feelings, and confrontations consistently and build that secure attachment, even if it feels harder to stay in sync. Eli pointed out that responding to our children’s needs is a core process of attachment, so tough moments can be opportuntites to bond even closer with our highly sensitive children. 

Maintaining Secure Attachment (Even Through Mistakes)

Many moms find themselves occupied with worry about how their actions are impacting their children. We want so badly to break cycles and show up for our kids that it can feel as though every moment is high-stakes. 

We often think of our attachment as something that can be shattered—as if when we mess up, raise our voices, or make mistakes we’re going to destroy the relationship that we’ve built and be remembered as angry moms. 

But attachment isn’t fragile. It’s flexible, like a rubber band. When we’ve worked to consistently build our attachment, it can go right back into place after tough moments. 

Attachment isn’t fragile. It’s flexible, like a rubber band.

Eli pointed out that in order to “snap” the rubber band in just one moment, it would have to be an extreme, abusive situation, likely involving physical or sexual abuse. Only an irreparable mistake could take away from the consistent pattern of reliability that we have established. 

She also said that often by worrying so much about shattering it, we are maintaining an insecure attachment. If we’re obsessing over every mistake or every moment, we might be existing in a heightened state of anxiety, ultimately affecting our attachment and the way we show up. 

It’s better for us, our child, and our relationship if we’re more accepting and forgiving of ourselves. We can repair after tough moments and strengthen our bond, maintaining that secure attachment and giving our children permission to make mistakes and be human.