Principles of development: the case of dependency

ABSTRACT

In this commentary, I underscore the two developmental principles or laws pointed to by this series of papers on child-teacher dependency; namely, that behavior and development are coherent and that early attachment relationships are the foundation for later development. First, I will review briefly the history of the dependency and attachment concepts and how Bowlby and Ainsworth distinguished them. This is followed by an overview of the comprehensive findings on the development of dependency from the Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation. In the conclusion, ideas are presented regarding how to view dependency in the classroom and whether and how to intervene. Suggestions are made regarding the research needed moving forward.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• dependency
• coherence
• development; intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).