Children with poor attachment to their parents: Explanatory variables as a function of their perception of their parents' behavior

An investigation was developed to determine the extent to which some children express detachment toward their parents and, in such cases, to determine the parental behaviors that predict this tendency. Participants were 3000 minors from Spanish schools, with a mean age of 11.32 years. We collected sociodemographic data, the answer to three questions (whether they loved their parents, whether they thought that they should always tell them the truth, and whether they wanted to maintain contact with them), and a scale of children's preferences elaborated ad hoc for this research. Results on child-parent attachment revealed that 4.7% of the children stated they did not love their parents, 5.2% did not want to have contact with them, 9.8% did not think it was important to tell them the truth, and 2.5% responded negatively to all three questions. The children identified four factors regarding the father's socialization behaviors (father's actions concerning homework, his willingness to help, positive and negative control of their behavior, excessive concern about them, and lack of communication) and four factors regarding the mother's socialization behaviors (mother's control of homework, negative control, excessive concern, and lack of communication). We verified that willingness to help the children, not using negative control, and adequate communication are the main explanatory factors of adequate attachment.