Two of the most important features of attachment relationships, responsiveness and availability, are relevant in considering the impact of parental commuting behavior on children.  First, long commutes usually cut into the available time parents have with children.  Second, the fatigue of long commutes on top of the fatigue of working full-time would presumably have some effect upon the emotional responsiveness of the parent. 

How do a child’s attachments influence their friendships?  The answer to this question may suggest possible explanations for why some children are more adversely affected than others by the long commutes of  their parents.  For example, we might ask if children’s friendships are a compensating resource that hedges against the loss of time with their parents due to long commutes.  Or, conversely, we may ask if deficits in children’s attachment relationships have a cascading effect upon them by having a negative impact on friendships.  If so, then the very friendships which might otherwise be a compensating resource to cope with absence of parents in the early evening may be inadequate or even non-existent.

             Kerns (1996) examined the ways that attachment relationships helped to account for individual differences in friendships.  In doing so, she distinguished between direct and indirect influences of the attachment relationship upon children’s friendships.  Direct influences involve the coaching or active facilitating actions of parents designed to foster their children’s relationships.  For example, a parent may arrange regular outings or instruct the child on how to make friends.  Indirect influences of attachment relationships on friendships are actions and activities that equip the child to generalize positive qualities of the attachment relationship to his or her relationships with peers.  For example, discussions with a parent in which a harmonious, non-contentious interaction style is modeled, can reap benefits for the child’s attempts to make and keep friends.

            Drawing from attachment theory and her own evaluation of studies relating friendship and attachment, Kerns suggests that positive attachment relationships benefit a child’s friends in two ways.  First, a child who is confident in the responsibility and availability of his or her caregiver will have the emotional support to initiate relationships with peers and explore his or her environment.  Second, the secure base of an attachment relationship provides the child with ‘working models’ or beliefs about self and others that encourage friendship.  For example, a child with positive view of self may have greater social confidence and “may better handle the rebuffs that all children face” (Kerns, 1996, p. 145).  Similarly, working models or beliefs about others derived from attachments to parents may influence how the actions of peers are perceived by the child.  To put this in negative terms, rejections from parents may make children more likely to make hostile attributions about the ambiguous comments or actions of peers (Kerns, 1996).

            Children develop socially not only in terms of peer interactions, but in the initiation and maintenance of friendships that may derive largely from the nature of the attachment relationships they have with parents.  However, the findings of one recent study suggest that relationships with peers and parents are structured so differently that each domain of relationships requires children to master different types of competencies (Buhrmester, 1996).  In any case, it is clear that attachments play an important role in the social development of children.  Early adolescent friendships may be greatly influenced by attachments to parents.  Alternatively, friendships may provide a hedge against other deficiencies such as lack of time with an attachment figure.  

        

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