Ep 151: Is Your Teen’s Attachment Style Causing Problems?

Peter Lovenheim, author of The Attachment Effect, shares insight into how attachment styles might be at the root of a distant or dramatic teen--or any relationship problems for that matter! Learn your teen’s attachment style to understand how to prepare them for adulthood.

Full show notes

It’s important for our teens to connect to others. When we send our kids off into the world, we want to know that they’ll be able to bond with friends, work associates, and romantic partners. Since we won’t be around all the time, we hope that they can find nourishing, fulfilling relationships with other people! But some young adults aren’t quite able to form those types of connections. They become too clingy or distant, trying to force people in or push people out. Not every teen has the capability to maintain healthy relationships!

And while the teen years are influential, attachment styles are usually developed in the first three years of a child’s life–meaning it’s not always easy to help teens who are struggling to form strong bonds. But if we can educate ourselves and our families about the psychology of attachment, we can guide teens to recognize their own patterns. If we give them the ability to analyze their own behavior, they can work towards creating the positive friendships and romantic relationships they deserve.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking to Peter Lovenheim, author of The Attachment Effect: Exploring the Powerful Ways Our Earliest Bond Shapes Our Relationships and Lives. Peter is a journalist and author who dedicated six years to interviewing experts and scouring publications to understand the ins and outs of how we bond to one another! Now, he’s here to touch on some fascinating facts about relationships, attachments, and more.

Today, we’re getting into the different styles of attachment: secure, avoidant, and anxious–and talking about what parents can do to help teens who have difficulty with friendships or early romantic partners. Pate and I are also sharing the strengths and weaknesses of each kind of attachment, and why it can be so important to help teens discover their own personal tendencies when it comes to forming bonds with others.

The Three Different Attachment Styles

Everyone is unique and there are so many factors that determine the nature of a relationship, but Peter defines three different types of attachment we can use to help define and understand our connections to others: secure, avoidant, and anxious. These patterns of bonding are created when we’re infants, but continue to affect us throughout our adult lives. About 95% of us can be grouped into one of these three categories.

It all depends on our relationship with our primary caregiver during our first three years of life, says Peter. Those who receive protection and care from a trusted adult typically develop a secure attachment style. These folks are able to create and maintain healthy boundaries with friends and partners, experience trust and intimacy, and handle setbacks in life with confidence and self assurance. About 55% of people fall into this category, says Peter.

But someone who experiences little to no affection or protection from a caregiver might find themselves with an avoidant attachment style. Instead of comfortably being vulnerable with others, people with avoidant attachment patterns shy away from intimacy, says Peter. They are often so self sufficient that they won’t let anyone else close to them. Those who receive inconsistent care can develop an anxious attachment style. This means they might feel nervous that their partner will leave or experience a constant rollercoaster of feeling desired and unwanted, Peter explains.

In the episode, Peter and I discuss how even if a parent gives plenty of time and attention to their child, the child can still develop anxious or avoidant patterns of attachment. It’s not black and white! He insists that parents shouldn’t be angry with themselves if their teen exhibits traits of insecure attachment. Instead, he suggests that they help teens understand their own patterns so they can live their best lives.

Helping Teens Get In Tune with Their Attachment

If you want your teen to form healthy relationships, helping them define their attachment patterns is a good place to start! Peter suggests they take a simple, five minute attachment quiz, widely available online, or talk to a psychologist for a professional diagnosis. Once you figure out if a teen has secure, anxious, or avoidant tendencies, there are so many ways you can use that information to help them, says Peter.

Even though these patterns are developed in early life, they often start to reveal themselves around the teen years when kids have their first romantic relationships or serious, long term friendships. By helping teens understand attachment patterns, they’ll be able to understand why they broke up with their boyfriend for the sixth time this week or why their latest BFF is being sooooo dramatic!

Plus, these styles of attachment factor into other parts of teenage life, says Peter. For a teen with an avoidant attachment style, playing on a soccer team with a bunch of their peers can be pretty difficult. These teens are often better suited to track and field or swimming, where they can make the most of their independence.

Peter and I get into a conversation about dating, and he gives tips for how teens or parents can figure out someone’s attachment style from just a first date. Interestingly, we also discuss how attachment has changed in the 21st century, and why we should be cautious about the role technology plays in our relationships with our kids.

Attachment in the Digital Age

As a parent raising a kid in today's tech-filled world, you might be nervous about your teen getting too much screen time. Although smartphones and laptops allow us to connect with those who are miles away or even meet new friends online, they can also isolate us from each other. Peter and I discuss a recent study which found that kids today are twice as likely to have anxious or avoidant attachment styles...and Peter suspects that our digital gadgets have something to do with it.

For a kid to develop secure attachment, says Peter, they have to have to have more than just time with a parent–that parent must be attuned to that kid’s every behavioral tendency. His worry for today’s parents is that phones, TVs and computers might be acting as a distracting force, keeping that attunement from developing between kids and parents. In the episode, we discuss how you can guide your kids towards healthy attachment, even if your devices tend to get in the way.

In the end, Peter says parents shouldn’t beat themselves up if they notice that their teen has some trouble with attachment. There are so many factors–everything from birth order to economics affects a child’s attachment patterns. Peter’s advice is to help kids become self aware and understand how they act in relationships or how they respond to setbacks in life. If they can do this, they’ll have a brighter future ahead of them.

In the Episode….

Peter’s fascinating findings about attachment are helpful to any parent who wants to help their kid form healthier relationships. On top of the topics discussed above, we cover:

• How to change your teen's attachment style
• The strengths of different attachment styles
• The dangerous anxious-avoidant relationship cycle--and how to ar...