Parenting adolescent daughters: differential effects of maternal attachment insecurity and proximity-seeking

Parenting adolescents requires parents to display diverse competencies, and parenting competence i.e. «caregiving» may be affected differentially by the underlying dimensions of an individual's «care seeking» behaviour, i.e. their own attachment style. Twenty five mothers of adolescent daughters were recruited in a cross-sectional design for this pilot study. Mothers aged between 32-51 years with a mean (± SD) age of 44.72 (± 5.47) years and each completed the Parenting Role Interview, which provides an «investigator-based» assessment of their parenting competence, as well as self-report measures of attachment style, stress, depression and well-being. Results revealed that greater parenting competence was associated with higher levels of the specific attachment construct of proximity-seeking, but not attachment security. In addition, worse maternal psychological health was associated with attachment insecurity, but not proximity-seeking. The underlying attachment dimension of proximity-seeking may hold particular significance for mothers of adolescent daughters and may be a viable target for parenting interventions.