How Does Parental Psychopathology and Parent Attachment Style Relate to Adolescent Attachment?
What Parents Need to Know Research shows higher rates of insecure attachment in children of parents who suffer from various disorders, including depression (Lyons-Ruth, et al. 1991) and alcoholism (Brennan, et al. 1991). Similarly, children of parents who themselves experienced insecure attachment in their relationships with their own parents are more likely to be insecurely attached than are children of parents who enjoyed a secure relationship with their own parents (Van-Ijzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1996). For example, Benoit and Parker (1994) found that mothers’ attachment style predicted infant attachment in 81% of cases, and that grandmothers’ attachment style predicted infant attachment in 75% of cases. Although research has yet to examine intergenerational transmission in attachment during the adolescent period, it is likely that insecure attachment in parents will be associated with increased rates of insecure attachment in adolescents, perhaps somewhat less profoundly th
