How Inconsistent Parenting Creates Anxious Attachment

Written by: Stephanie Underwood, RSW

Children raised by anxious or fearful-avoidant parents experience hot-and-cold affection, guilt-tripping, and enmeshment that leave lasting scars. This post tells the story of that trauma and explains what research reveals about its impact.

It’s Saturday morning. Nine-year-old Emily wakes up excited to show her mother the drawing she stayed up late finishing.

She tiptoes into the kitchen, holding the paper like a treasure. “Look, Mom! I drew us together at the park.”

Her mother beams, pulling her in for a hug. “You’re so talented, sweetheart. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Emily glows under the warmth, her nervous system finally relaxing.

But later that afternoon, Emily asks if she can go to a friend’s house. The warmth evaporates. Her mother sighs, shoulders heavy. “Really, Emily? Don’t you care about how lonely I’ll be? After everything I do for you, you’d rather be with someone else?”

Emily freezes. She wants to go, but the guilt churns in her stomach. By dinnertime, her mother is cold and distant, speaking in clipped tones. Emily eats silently, staring at her plate, wondering what she did wrong.

That night, lying in bed, Emily clutches her stuffed animal and replays the day. She thinks: If only I were better, maybe Mom wouldn’t get so upset. Maybe tomorrow will be a good day.

For Emily, love feels like whiplash, warm and comforting one moment, rejecting and suffocating the next. She learns to monitor every tone, every sigh, every silence, in a desperate attempt to hold on to closeness.

Why Children Blame Themselves

One of the most consistent patterns we see in children raised in unstable or inconsistent homes is self-blame. When a parent is emotionally volatile, neglectful, or manipulative, the child almost never says, “My parent is unsafe.” Instead, they think:

• “I must be bad.”

• “If I were better, they’d love me.”

• “If I don’t upset them, maybe they won’t leave.”

Why does this happen? The answer lies in survival and attachment.

A child’s primary task in the earliest years of life is not independence, it’s survival. And survival depends entirely on maintaining connection with the caregiver. If a child were to recognize consciously, “My parent can’t meet my needs” or “My parent is unsafe,” it would create an unbearable truth: the very person they depend on for food, shelter, and safety might not be able to protect them.

So instead, the child turns inward. They make themselves the problem because that is something they can control. If they believe, “It’s my fault,” then they can also believe, “If I try harder, if I change, maybe things will get better.”

This internal logic protects the attachment bond, even at the cost of the child’s self-esteem. Because the truth is that the brain doesn’t care about our self-esteem - it just wants to survive. Research supports this. Bowlby (1969/1982) described how children develop “internal working models” of themselves and others based on caregiving experiences. When the caregiver is inconsistent or frightening, the child’s model often becomes: “I am unworthy” or “I am too much.” This preserves hope that the caregiver is still safe, because believing the caregiver is broken would threaten survival.

Over time, this self-blame solidifies into core beliefs: “I’m unlovable,” “I’m a burden,” “I’m not enough.” These beliefs can last into adulthood, shaping relationships long after the child has left home. Children raised by anxious or fearful-avoidant parents experience hot-and-cold affection, guilt-tripping, and enmeshment that leave lasting scars. This post tells the story of that trauma and explains what research reveals about its impact.

When Love Feels Like Whiplash

Imagine being a child who never knows which version of your parent will walk through the door. Some days, you’re met with warmth, hugs, smiles, and “I love you.” Other days, the same parent turns cold, critical, or withdrawn, leaving you wondering what you did wrong.

This isn’t just a “moody” parent. For many children, this is daily life when raised by caregivers with anxious or fearful-avoidant attachment. The inconsistency, the push and pull, doesn’t just sting in the moment. It wires the child’s nervous system for uncertainty, making them anxious in love for years to come.

Hot-and-Cold Parenting

Children thrive on predictability. When love and comfort are available one moment and withdrawn the next, a child becomes hypervigilant. They learn to scan every look, every sigh, every pause in conversation, trying to anticipate rejection before it comes.

Research backs this up. A meta-analytic review on maternal sensitivity found that inconsistency in responding to a child’s needs is strongly tied to anxious attachment in children (Tudehope Booth et al., 2019).

In simple terms: unpredictability breeds insecurity.

The Weight of Guilt

Now picture this: you’re upset and cry as a child. Instead of comfort, your parent sighs and says, “Do you have any idea how much stress you cause me?” Suddenly, your tears aren’t about your needs anymore. They’re about your parent’s feelings.

This guilt-tripping, often unconscious, leaves children believing their needs are harmful. Rakow and colleagues (2009) found that parental guilt induction is directly linked to children developing internalizing problems such as anxiety and depression. The child learns that love is conditional: they can be close only when their parent isn’t overwhelmed.

Family Enmeshment

For some children, the problem isn’t distance but too much closeness. An anxious parent may overshare adult problems, lean on the child for emotional support, or blur boundaries in ways that feel suffocating.

On the surface, it may look like closeness. In reality, it’s enmeshment, a dynamic where the child feels a responsible for a parent’s wellbeing. Over time, the child loses a sense of where they end and the parent begins. Research on family cohesion and intrusiveness shows that this over-involvement erodes autonomy and fosters anxiety (Barber & Buehler, 1996).

Fearful-Avoidant Chaos

Some children grow up with parents who swing between craving closeness and pushing it away. A parent may cling one day, then lash out or retreat the next. This is the hallmark of fearful-avoidant attachment: wanting intimacy but fearing it at the same time.

For the child, it’s like being thrown into emotional whiplash. The very person meant to protect them is both comforter and source of fear. Research describes this as “disorganized attachment,” and it’s strongly associated with later difficulties in regulating emotions and forming healthy relationships (Main & Solomon, 1990; Hong et al., 2012).

The Child’s Perspective

From the child’s vantage point, the message is clear:

• “I can’t relax, because love might vanish at any moment.”

• “My needs are too much, I’ll be punished with guilt if I show them.”

• “I don’t know who I am without taking care of someone else.”

This is why so many adults raised in these environments grow into partners who cling desperately to relationships, feel constantly “not enough,” and confuse chaos for love. The child becomes the adult who finds partners where these very patterns can repeat themselves in order to reinforce the negative core beliefs that the brain has from childhood. Because to the brain, familiarly equals safety.

The Harsh Truth: Selfish and Ego-Centered Parenting

The type of parenting describe here in this blog post? It’s selfish. This is the type of parent who is getting their needs met through their child, at the expense of that child’s self-esteem. Is it intentional on the parent’s part? Not typically. However, it becomes intentional when we do know the impacts of our behaviour on others and we choose not to do anything about it.

Why It Matters

It’s easy to soften these realities with excuses like, “They did their best” or “They didn’t know better.” But for the child, the impact is still traumatic. These patterns are not minor quirks, they shape a child’s entire sense of self, safety, and worth.

For those of you who have an anxious attachment - or a Fearful-Avoidant Attachment - this isn’t about blaming the parents. This is about understanding that YOU didn’t do anything wrong. Your fear of abandonment and rejection stems from a parent who didn’t parent you from a place of safety.

Healing begins with naming the behaviors clearly: hot-and-cold affection, guilt-tripping, manipulation, enmeshment. By recognizing them, we stop normalizing them. And when we stop normalizing them, we can break the cycle.

Stephanie Underwood, BSW, RSW

Registered Social Worker

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References

Barber, B. K., & Buehler, C. (1996). Family cohesion and enmeshment: Different constructs, different effects. Family Process, 35(2), 195–210. Wiley Online Library

Hong, Y. R., et al. (2012). Impact of attachment, temperament, and parenting on developmental outcomes in children. Child Development Research, 2012. PMC

Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1990). Procedures for identifying infants as disorganized/disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention, 121–160.

Rakow, A., et al. (2009). The relation of parental guilt induction to child internalizing problems when a caregiver has a history of depression. Journal of Family Psychology, 23(2), 199–209. PMC

Tudehope Booth, A., Macdonald, J., Youssef, G., et al. (2019). Contextual stress and maternal sensitivity: A meta-analytic review. arXiv preprint. arXiv