A new study shows that 40 percent of 14,000 U.S. children lack strong emotional bonds with parents and are more likely to face educational and behavioral problems as a result.

In a report published by Sutton Trust, a London-based institute that has published more than 140 research papers on education and social mobility, researchers found that infants under the age of three who do not form strong bonds with their mothers or fathers are more likely to be aggressive, defiant, and hyperactive as adults.

Other symptoms include the absence or distortion of age appropriate social behaviors with adults. For example, in a toddler, attachment-disordered behavior could include a failure to stay near familiar adults in a strange environment or to be comforted by contact with a familiar person, whereas in a six-year-old attachment-disordered behavior might involve excessive friendliness and inappropriate approaches to strangers.

Attachment disorder is a broad term intended to disorders of mood, behavior, and social relationships arising from a failure to form normal attachments to primary caregivers in early childhood, resulting in problematic social expectations and behaviors. Failures result from unusual early experiences of neglect, abuse, or abrupt separation from caregivers before about three years of age, frequent change of caregivers, or lack of caregiver responsiveness to child communicative efforts. 

 Of the 40 percent from the study, 25 percent avoid their caregivers when they are upset (because their needs are ignored), and 15 percent resist their caregivers because they cause distress.

Dr. Susan Campbell, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh who studies social and emotional development in young children and infants, said insecure attachments emerge when primary caregivers are not “tuned in” to their infant’s social signals, especially their cries of distress during infancy.

“When helpless infants learn early that their cries will be responded to, they also learn that their needs will be met, and they are likely to form a secure attachment to their parents,” Campbell said.

“However, when caregivers are overwhelmed because of their own difficulties, infants are more likely to learn that the world is not a safe place, leading them to become needy, frustrated, or withdrawn.”

The researchers argue that many parents, including middle-class parents, need more support to provide proper parenting, including family leave, home visits, and income supports.