From Rigidity to Flexibility in Attachment and Sharing Faith With Children: The Conectere Intervention for Protective Christian Parents and Caregivers

Granqvist (2020) identified attachment security as a moderating factor in the cultural transmission of parents’ religious ideas to their children, finding that securely attached children with religious parents tend to replicate their parents’ God representations, but insecurely attached children do not. To aid religious parents in effective faith transmission, the Conectere critical participatory action research study provided attachment training for Christian parents and primary caregivers alongside group reflection on practices for sharing faith and values with children at home. The study utilized mixed-methods data collection, psychometric instrument scoring, and thematic analysis. Forty parents and caregivers reported perceiving external cultural threats to their religious values and brought protective parenting impulses. In learning about attachment, they articulated new representations of God as a divine caregiver offering a safe haven and a secure base. Accordingly, they sought to reposition their caregiving and faith sharing within a safe haven and secure base, moving from rigidity to flexibility in their approach to faith transmission. They articulated a desire not to replicate attachment insecurity or religious malformation they may have experienced but instead to extend a balance of protection and freedom for their own children in hopes that they might achieve secure representations of God.