Joiner Flourishing Pathway Blog Two: Nurturing
- joinerflourishingp
- Oct 24, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 27
JFP Principle 2: How Infant Nurturing Shapes the Developing Brain
In this second blog in the Joiner Flourishing Pathway series, we explore Principle 2:
The way infants are nurtured has profound effects on their brain development and whether they establish long-term positive or negative emotional and social pathways.
Whether you’re a parent-to-be, a parent, grandparent, or someone interested in your own early experiences, this blog offers a condensed but powerful overview of what neuroscience and attachment research tell us about infant development.
*This is a condensed version of a much longer discussion in my book:
The Discovery That Changed My View of Parenting
As a mother, I instinctively knew something was deeply important about the way we respond to our babies—but it wasn’t until I encountered the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth that I had the language and research to explain it.
Bowlby and Ainsworth developed Attachment Theory, which showed that the quality of the bond between an infant and their primary caregiver (often the mother) creates a template for how the child will later navigate relationships and emotional life.
Bowlby observed that the absence of a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship in infancy, caused infants and children to feel unsafe and unprotected, which in turn resulted in deficits in emotional wellbeing (Bowlby, 1988, p. 21).
Ainsworth further demonstrated that infants whose parents were consistently responsive felt secure and learned to self-regulate. Infants whose parents were inconsistent or unresponsive were more likely to become anxious, clingy, or avoidant.
Nurturing Doesn’t Create Clinginess—It Builds Resilience
Contrary to outdated advice that suggested ignoring a crying baby would encourage independence, Ainsworth found the opposite:
A mother’s prompt responsiveness to infant crying early on led to less crying later... Sensitive responsiveness fostered cooperative compliance, while emphasis on obedience training led to noncompliance (Ainsworth, 1985, p. 775).
In other words, loving, consistent care builds trust—and children who feel safe are naturally more cooperative and resilient.
Secure vs Insecure Attachment: The Long-Term Differences
Ainsworth and later Mary Main found that securely attached children go on to develop:
Higher self-esteem
Stronger peer relationships
Greater emotional regulation
More curiosity and persistence
Better problem-solving skills
Higher scores in developmental and language assessments (Ainsworth, 1979, 1985; Bowlby 1969; Howe 2005).
Meanwhile, children with insecure attachment were more likely to exhibit aggression, anxiety, avoidance, and lower emotional wellbeing later in life.
Fascinatingly, Bowlby (1988) describes the detail of how early interactions leading to positive outcomes begin. He says
When a mother and her infant of two or three weeks are facing one another, phases of lively social interaction occur, alternating with phases of disengagement. Each phase of interaction begins with initiation and mutual greeting, builds up to an animated interchange comprising facial expressions and vocalisation, during which the infant orients towards his mother with excited movements of arms and legs; then his activities gradually subside and end with the baby looking away for a spell before the next phase of interaction begins (p. 7).
These observations revealed that long before language is established the infant is learning through cyclical interactions (with the mother in this case) of engagement and disengagement, the basis of social interactions.
How the Infant Brain Develops – and Why It Matters So Much
Neuroscience backs up these psychological insights.
The infant brain grows by over 101% in the first year (Knickmeyer et al., 2008, p. 12176)
By age two, children reach 80–90% of adult brain volume
This rapid growth means infants are highly vulnerable to both positive and negative experiences during this critical window.
Infants Are Wired to Seek Connection
Psychologist Darcia Narvaez (2013b) found that infants are not passive—they are experience-expectant. Their innate behaviours, such as eye contact, cooing, and reaching, are designed to draw nurturing responses from caregivers.
At the same time, the birth parent's body is flooded with neurochemicals (Feldman et al., 2007), supporting the creation of a dyadic bond. These repeated, intimate interactions—called neural practicing—form the foundations for emotional expression, mutual understanding, and ultimately, secure attachment:
It is the infant’s inner perception of whether they ‘feel felt’... that comes to determine whether the infant is emotionally nourished or not (Siegel, 2001, p. 78).
The Toxic Effects of Prolonged, Unrepaired Stress
Short bursts of stress followed by comforting support help infants develop resilience. But prolonged, unrepaired stress—especially in the absence of a secure caregiver—can lead to:
A maladaptive stress response
Long-term changes in brain architecture
Shrinking of brain cells (Narvaez, 2014, p. 140)
Increased risk of depression, aggression, and risk-taking behaviours later in life (Narvaez et al., 2013a, p. 457).
Even physical health systems—digestive, immune, and cardiovascular—are negatively affected by insecure attachment (Narvaez et al., 2013b, p. 12).
Why This Matters
Alarmingly, research shows that around 40% of children have insecure attachment styles. This means a large portion of the next generation may be entering adolescence and adulthood with:
Lower emotional resilience
Reduced cognitive development
Greater vulnerability to mental illness, aberrant behaviours and chronic physical conditions.
This data should urge us to ask:
Why don’t we have clear, widespread education on responsive nurturing for new parents?
It’s something I’ll explore more deeply in future blogs.
Looking Ahead
If infants need loving, responsive care from an enduring attachment figure to develop healthy brains and bodies, then it’s also important to consider: whether there are differences in how mothers and fathers nurture? That’s the topic of the next post in this series—JFP Blog 3: Mothers and Fathers.
Bibliography
Ainsworth 1979, 'Infant–mother attachment', American Psychologist, vol. 34, no. 10, pp. 932-937.
Ainsworth, MD 1985, 'Patterns of infant-mother attachments: antecedents and effects on development', Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, vol. 61, no. 9, pp. 771-791.
Bowlby, J 1969, Attachment and loss, vol. 1 Attachment, Basic Books, New York.
—— 1988, A secure base: clinical applications of attachment theory, Routledge, London.
Feldman, R, Weller, A, Zagoory-Sharon, O & Levine, A 2007, 'Evidence for a neuroendocrinological foundation of human affiliation: plasma oxytocin levels across pregnancy and the postpartum period predict mother-infant bonding', Psychological Science, vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 965-970.
Howe, D 2005, Child abuse and neglect: attachment, development, and intervention, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire.
Knickmeyer, RC, Gilmore, JH, Gouttard, S, Kang, C, Evans, D, Wilber, K, Smith, JK, Hamer, RM, Lin, W & Gerig, G 2008, 'A Structural MRI Study of Human Brain Development from Birth to 2 Years', Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 28, no. 47, pp. 12176-12182.
Narvaez, D 2014, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, and Wisdom, W W Norton & Company, New York.
Narvaez, D & Gleason, TR 2013, 'Developmental Optimization', in D Narvaez, J Panksepp, AN Schore & TR Gleason (eds), Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From research to practice and policy, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 307-325.
Narvaez, D, Panksepp, J, Schore, AN & Gleason, TR 2013a, 'The Future of Human Nature: Implications for Research, Policy, and Ethics', in D Narvaez, J Panksepp, AN Schore & TR Gleason (eds), Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From research to practice and policy, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 455-468.
Narvaez, D, Panksepp, J, Schore, AN & Gleason, TR 2013b, 'The Value of Using an Evolutionary Framework for Gauging Children's Well-Being', in D Narvaez, J Panksepp, AN Schore & TR Gleason (eds), Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 3-30.
Siegel, DJ 2001, 'Toward an interpersonal neurobiology of the developing mind: Attachment relationships, “mindsight,” and neural integration', Infant Mental Health Journal, vol. 22, no. 1-2, pp. 67-94.
—— 2009, Mindsight: change your brain and your life, Scribe, Carlton North.
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