Child’s attachment to mother as a predictor of psychological well-being in primary school age

Introduction. The attachment is viewed as the base for assessment of individual adaptation variation throughout life. In the capacity of the core indicator of the person’s unison with external environment, the psychological well-being combines the different aspects of child life. The assessment of the psychological well-being is based on three indicators: evidence of life satisfaction; life quality assessment; difficulty levels of external and internal spectrum.

The aim of the current publication is to investigate the influence of features of attachment to mother on psychological well-being of primary school-age children.

Methodology and research methods. The methodological research framework was based on the main provisions of the attachment theory (J. Bowlby, M. Ainsworth). “Mother-Child Attachment Style Measure Questionnaire” method (Pupyreva, 2007) was employed to identify attachment features. The measure of psychological well-being was carried out by means of “Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale” (Toporkova, Slobodskaya et al., 2015), “Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory” and “Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire” (Goodman, Slobodskaya, Knyazev, 2005) methods. 178 primary school-age children (85 boys and 93 girls) aged 10 to 11 (mean age = 10.2) participated in the research.

Results. The analysis of the results showed that secure attachment among children reduces life satisfaction, facilitates the behavioural disorders and psycho-emotional reactions, impacts on limitation of social contacts and life quality. Using the regression analysis, it was revealed that the quality of the correlation between attachment indicators and psychological well-being vary depending on degree of attachment security. It is demonstrated that maternal responsiveness and attentiveness is an absolute predictor of life satisfaction, physical and social well-being and life quality in the primary school-age period, irrespective of the child’s attachment types. The absence of mother-child closeness is the predictor for disruption of physical, emotional and social functioning, low level of life quality in insecure attachment in primary school-aged children.

Scientific novelty. The specificity of psychological well-being of primary school-aged children with different types of attachment to their mother is determined. It is shown for the first time that characteristics of attachment are the predictors of life satisfaction, quality of life, and mental health of primary school-aged children.

Practical significance. By identifying different regression models for the description of psychological well-being on the basis of child-mother attachment indicators, it may be possible to provide interventions to improve psychological well-being based on the characteristics of attachment.

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