Parental attachment and its impact on the development of psychiatric manifestations in school-aged children

Background: Few studies have examined the relationship between the attachment styles of the primary caregivers and the behavioral problems of their school-aged children. This study was performed to identify the impact of insecure attachment patterns of parents on the development of their children's psychiatric manifestations and disorders. Samplings and Methods: We included 494 2nd to 3rd graders and their primary caretakers. A relationship questionnaire was applied to identify the parental attachment patterns. We investigated the children's mental and behavioral problems by using the Korean Child Behavior Checklist. For objective psychiatric diagnoses, we interviewed 130 high-risk subjects using the Korean Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia - Present and Lifetime version. Results: Those parents judged to be preoccupied had children with more internalized symptoms than those who were judged to be secure (p < 0.01); dismissing/avoidant parents had children with higher scores on Attention problems (p = 0002), and fearful/avoidant parents had children with more externalized symptoms (p < 0.01). Moreover, children with insecure attachment type parents revealed more psychiatric morbidity than children with secure parents (p = 0.042). Conclusion: Parental insecure attachment was associated with the development of the psychopathologies and psychiatric illness of their children.