Insecure attachment in toddlers looks like a mix of clinging and avoiding, with toddlers showing difficulty regulating emotions, being overly dependent or withdrawn, and reacting strongly (anger, extreme distress) or not at all when separated from or reunited with a caregiver, often displaying fear or confusion around them, especially with disorganized styles. Key signs include avoidant behaviors (ignoring caregiver), ambivalent/anxious (clingy but resistant), or disorganized (fearful/confused), struggling to explore, and having intense emotional outbursts. Slumberkins +2
Signs and symptoms of attachment issues
Several cues can be signs of secure attachment in infants or toddlers:
Young children who don't actively seek out their caregiver for comfort or emotional support are noted as demonstrating avoidant attachment styles. Infants and toddlers with an avoidant attachment may also display little or no emotion when a caregiver departs or returns.
Referred to as anxious ambivalent attachment in children, anxious attachment develops in early childhood. Most often, anxious attachment is due to misattuned and inconsistent parenting. Low self-esteem, strong fear of rejection or abandonment, and clinginess in relationships are common signs of this attachment style.
Ask your child to name 3 things they can see, identify 3 sounds they can hear, and move 3 different parts of their bodies.
Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is a rare condition where children don't form an emotional bond with their caretakers. Children who are adopted may experience RAD. Treatment focuses on repairing and/or creating emotionally healthy family bonds.
Help your child to feel safe and secure:
Caregivers (usually parents) who are strict and emotionally distant, do not tolerate expressions of feelings, and expect their child to be independent and tough might raise children with an avoidant attachment style. Avoidant attachment in adults may, from the outside, look like self-confidence and self-sufficiency.
What Are the 7 Traits of Avoidant Personality Disorder According to DSM-5?
The strongest indicator of secure attachment is the ability to balance intimacy and independence in a way that sustains relationships over time. Securely attached individuals can comfortably depend on others and allow others to depend on them, fostering relationships marked by mutual trust and respect.
Separation anxiety, on the other hand, can cause much longer phases of clinginess. According to the AAP, many children begin having some feelings of separation anxiety around the time they're 8 months old, with the phase peaking between 10 and 18 months and mostly resolving by the time a child turns 2.
Babies and toddlers often get clingy and cry if you or their other carers leave them, even for a short time. Separation anxiety and fear of strangers is common in young children between the ages of 6 months and 3 years, but it's a normal part of your child's development and they usually grow out of it.
Signs of insecure attachment:
become quickly or disproportionately angry or upset, at times with no clear triggers. be scared of being vulnerable – but may mask this by being highly controlling of others and through unpredictable and explosive outbursts. avoid getting close to others and appear withdrawn or disengaged from school activities.
Insecure attachment often develops when a child's emotional needs aren't consistently met. Maybe their parents were dealing with their own mental health struggles or substance abuse issues. Or perhaps the child experienced neglect, abuse, or trauma.
What Is the Unhealthiest Attachment Style? Anxious attachment styles, disorganized attachment styles, and avoidant attachment styles are considered insecure/unhealthy forms of attachment.
If you have avoidant attachment, your primary caregivers were likely neglectful or inconsistent in how they cared for you. They might have also been emotionally unavailable. You may have experienced emotional or physical neglect.
The four main attachment styles, developed in childhood but affecting adult relationships, are Secure, Anxious (Preoccupied), Avoidant (Dismissive), and Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant), shaping how people seek closeness, handle intimacy, and react to perceived rejection, with secure individuals forming healthy, balanced bonds and insecure styles showing patterns of fear, distance, or inconsistency.
The timing of separation anxiety can vary. Some kids might go through it later, between 18 months and 2½ years of age. Some never experience it.
They advocate for a collection of seven practices they call the Baby Bs: “birth bonding, breastfeeding, baby-wearing, bedding close to the baby, belief in the baby's cry, balance and boundaries, and beware of baby trainers.”
Parents can ease the phase by redistributing fun tasks, giving the less-preferred parent more solo time with the child, staying positive if rejected, and building new one-on-one routines to strengthen both bonds.
In other words, a child that suffered from constant anxiety and fear due to trauma may develop a tendency to freeze as a response to triggers as an adult. Over time, this can have significant long-term health and mental health consequences, including increased risk for anxiety, depression, and other disorders.
Signs of disorganized attachment issues typically include:
Affected children have difficulty forming emotional attachments to others, show a decreased ability to experience positive emotion, cannot seek or accept physical or emotional closeness, and may react violently when held, cuddled, or comforted.