What Is Anxious Avoidant Attachment and What Causes It?

The anxious avoidant attachment style (known as avoidant attachment in adulthood) typically develops in the first 18 months of life. During this formative period, a child’s caregiver may have been consistently emotionally unavailable or rejecting to their child’s emotional needs. 

Such caregivers may have disregarded their child’s needs by not responding to their cues and behaving in a “rejecting” or “cold” manner. These caregivers may also frown upon displays of emotion from their child – both negative and positive.

How Attachment Styles Form in Childhood

A child’s attachment style is formed through the bond that develops between themselves and their caregivers. Through how their parents or caregivers meet their needs, a child forms expectations about their world and the people in it. 

These expectations have a significant impact on the domains of a child’s life; from their thoughts, outlook, and actions, to how they socialize with other children and adults, and even to how they behave in adult relationships.

If you would like to learn more about how the secure and three insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, and disorganized) develop, check out our article on what insecure attachment is and how it forms in childhood.

How Does the Anxious Avoidant Attachment Style Develop?

What happens when a child perceives that their caregivers aren’t meeting their emotional needs?

In essence, a “rejecting” or “cold” style of parenting tends to promote a premature sense of independence in children. This happens after a child with anxious avoidant attachment repeatedly tries for comfort and affection and appraises that their caregivers consistently rebuff their attempts, the child shuts down their attachment system.

It’s important to note that the caregivers of anxious avoidant children may not intentionally reject or neglect their childrens needs – often, they do so because they were raised in a similar environment. In such instances, there is transgenerational trauma of insecure attachment passed down the family line.

The following are some of the typical behaviors exhibited by caregivers of an anxious avoidant child:

• When their child is distressed or afraid, such caregivers may separate physically from them or become irritated
• They may shame their child for showing emotion
• Such caregivers might expect their child to foster unrealistic independence for their age
• They may use punitive phrases with their child when they show emotion. For instance: “Stop crying”; “You’re acting like a baby”; “Toughen up”; or “Grow up.”
• These caregivers might also repeatedly ignore their child’s cues or cries of distress

How Does a Child With Anxious Avoidant Attachment Perceive Their Caregiver’s Behavior?

As a response to the caregiver actions listed above, a child with an anxious avoidant attachment style learns that seeking out their caregiver for comfort when distressed or frightened is fruitless.

As a result of their caregiver’s behaviors, anxious avoidant children suppress their innate desire for affection and acceptance because they learned that displays of emotion will likely lead to rejection, scorn, or punishment. In other words, anxious avoidant children shut down their attachment system – meaning they disconnect from their emotional needs.

Interestingly, by suppressing their need to express emotions, anxious avoidant children can fulfill at least one of their attachment needs – maintaining proximity to their caregiver.

Anxious avoidant children understand that they have to self-soothe and nurture their own emotional needs, and, in time, they develop a false sense of independence. This sense of independence leads them to feel like they don’t need the support of other people in their lives. Anxious avoidant children have always taken care of their own emotional needs and will continue to do so as adults.

How Does an Anxious Avoidant Child Behave?

In the Strange Situation experiment in 1969, Mary Ainsworth noted that after a period of absence with their mothers, some children either avoided or resisted contact with them on their reunion.

However, despite their outward appearance that they didn’t need their caregiver, these children acted just as distressed during the separation period as securely attached children. They just didn’t show it. These children were later identified as having anxious avoidant attachment.

As children with an anxious avoidant style develop, they adopt a strong outward sense of self-reliance. Such children may even come across as “little adults” and rarely show signs of needing closeness, affection, or nurturance.

Although anxious avoidant children often enjoy the company of others, they may still struggle to connect with them on an emotional level. Deep down, they feel like they shouldn’t be dependent on anyone else.

Yet, returning to the Strange Situation, when physiologically assessed during periods of separation from their caregivers, children with the anxious avoidant attachment style showed the same reactions as other children.

This finding implies that anxious avoidant children are far more concerned about being detached from their caregivers than they like to show. For this reason, avoidant children usually seek to maintain physical closeness with their caregivers but prefer to avoid interacting with them.

Common characteristics and behaviors of an anxious avoidant child include:

• Resisting soothing or comfort from their caregiver
• Seeming highly independent from an outside perspective
• Not seeming to need affection or nurturance
• Feeling considerably more anxious than they project
• Seeking proximity but avoiding contact with their caregiver

How Can a Child Be Raised to Develop Secure Attachment?

How much attention, love, and support is too little? How much is smothering? The truth is that every caregiver and child is unique, so, at times, parenting can be difficult to navigate.

Fortunately, children are born with strong survival instincts based on their inability to survive on their own and their reliance on adults for nurturance and protection.

Thus, children give out signals to notify their caregivers that they need something. How parents respond to these cues from their children can differ between a secure and insecure attachment style.

Final Words on the Anxious Avoidant Attachment Style and How it Develops

The anxious avoidant attachment style (known as avoidant attachment in adults) develops in response to how caregivers meet their childrens’ needs in the formative stage of development (typically the first eighteen months). If a child perceives that their caregivers are consistently rejecting or unavailable to their needs – especially emotional ones – the child understands that this is how the world works and shuts down their needs for affection and support. As a result, the anxious avoidant child develops a premature sense of independence. 

As adults, children with the anxious avoidant attachment style continue to shut down their emotional needs and prefer to be self-reliant. Deep down they understand that they can’t rely on others to not let them down or reject them. Such outlooks and actions can make maintaining relationships difficult, but adults with the avoidant attachment style can heal at any stage of their lives.

FAQ

How to fix anxious-avoidant attachment?

Some people may wonder how to fix an anxious-avoidant attachment (avoidant-dismissive in adulthood). However, it’s good to note that – although it is possible to heal an avoidant attachment style – people with it don’t necessarily need “fixing.” If an avoidant attachment style is affecting your ability to live a full life or impacting your well-being, you can learn how to shift towards more secure attachment through understanding your attachment style and triggers, learning about healthy coping methods, or considering therapy. 

What causes anxious-avoidant attachment?

An anxious-avoidant attachment style typically forms in the formative developmental period of childhood (roughly the first two years) as a response to how a child perceives their needs to be met by their primary caregiver. In the case of anxious-avoidant attachment, the child perceives their needs to be rejected – especially emotional ones. As a result, the child forms an internal working model of relationships, determining that they can only rely on themself, and shutting down their attachment system. However, it is also possible to develop an insecure attachment point later in life as a response to changing circumstances and relationships.

Do I have anxious avoidant attachment?

If you’re wondering if you have an anxious-avoidant attachment (dismissive-avoidant in adulthood), then you can take our quiz for a free, comprehensive report.

Continued Reading

This article is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to knowing how to raise a child with a secure attachment.

If you’re interested in knowing more, then we can suggest reading our articles on avoidant attachment in adult relationships, and secure attachment from childhood to adult relationships. 

Sources:

Bowlby, J. (2012). A secure base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory. London: Routledge.

Brown, D. P., Elliott, D. S. (2016). Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair. New York: W.W. Norton.

Salter, M.D., Ainsworth, M.C., Blehar, E.W., Wall, S.N. (2015). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. New York: Taylor & Francis.