Configurations of mother–child and father–child attachment relationships as predictors of child language competence: An individual participant data meta-analysis
Child Development
Report summary
Do young children with secure relationships to both parents have better language skills?
Children with secure attachment relationships to both parents had somewhat better language skills than children with one secure parent relationship or none. No statistically significant difference was detected between the mother-only and father-only secure groups. The study did not establish that their effects were equal.
The difference in language skills was small but measurable. It supports a modest average advantage for children with two secure parent relationships, not a large benefit or a prediction about every child.
Key limitation: Seven contributing studies, published from 1985–2014
Researchers' conclusions
The authors interpreted the findings as supporting the comparable importance of attachment to both parents for the developmental outcome studied.
This is a plain-language summary of the researchers' conclusion. It is not advice for an individual family.
Read this conclusion within the population, research design and limitations described in this record.
How the report was produced
Important limitations
- Seven contributing studies, published from 1985–2014
- The sample was 87% White
- Association does not by itself establish causation
Evidence context and debate
Open the sections below for the wider research context, points of agreement, and areas that remain contested.
Editorial interpretation of the wider topic
This section discusses the wider topic. Its statements are not all findings of this individual paper.
The literature now treats multiple attachment relationships as normal, while recognizing that relationship quality can differ by caregiver and outcome.
The strongest designs assess each caregiver–child relationship separately and then test whether configurations across relationships predict later outcomes.
Questions the wider evidence informs
- Assessing each established caregiver-child relationship rather than assuming one represents the whole network.
- Protecting meaningful familiar relationships where care is safe and good enough.
- Studying configurations and cumulative relationship resources.
- Avoiding gender-based assumptions about attachment capacity.
Limits of the wider evidence
- Treating caregivers as interchangeable simply because multiple attachments are possible.
- Inferring an exact time division from network research.
- Assuming more relationships always improve outcomes regardless of their quality or safety.
- Claiming that one modest developmental association proves broad effects in every domain.
Why this question matters
Early popular accounts often emphasized one primary figure. Observational and later synthesis work increasingly examined the child’s network of relationships with mothers, fathers, and other regular caregivers.
The question is no longer whether children can become attached to more than one caregiver. They can. The more demanding research question is how several relationship qualities operate together: whether security with one caregiver compensates for insecurity with another, whether benefits accumulate, and whether different relationships predict different developmental domains.
Dagan and colleagues’ participant-level synthesis is important because it does not reduce the child’s world to one dyad. It combines mother-child and father-child classifications and tests configurations against language competence. The reported advantage for two secure relationships is modest, and the sample is not globally representative, but the analysis directly addresses the network proposition.
Network findings challenge the claim that strengthening one familiar relationship necessarily weakens another. They do not imply that all caregivers are interchangeable or that equal quantities of time are required. Attachment remains relationship-specific, and the quality, history, regularity, and function of each relationship matter.
Where researchers agree and disagree
There is broad agreement that children can form attachments to more than one familiar caregiver and that a network can be developmentally valuable.
Researchers continue to study whether relationships contribute similarly, additively, hierarchically, or in outcome-specific ways.
Comparison with other research
Early attachment theory
Popular monotropy accounts emphasized one principal figure. The broader theory allowed a hierarchy of relationships, but public and legal translations often became more exclusive than the evidence warranted.
Father-involvement research
Lamb and others documented fathers as direct caregivers and attachment figures rather than only indirect supports to mothers.
Dagan et al., 2024
Reported that children with two secure relationships had somewhat higher language competence and found no differential predictive advantage for mother-child over father-child attachment quality.
Forslund et al., 2022
Identified the benefits of attachment networks as one of three principles with broad international consensus for court understanding.
How the evidence developed later
Research moved from asking whether fathers matter to measuring father-child attachment directly.
Configuration studies test two relationships simultaneously rather than controlling one away.
Participant-level meta-analysis now permits harmonized tests across previously separate datasets.
Future work must improve cultural diversity and examine outcomes beyond language competence.
Read the paper and related research
This report
Dagan, Schuengel, Verhage, Madigan, Roisman et al. (2024). Configurations of mother–child and father–child attachment relationships as predictors of child language competence: An individual participant data meta-analysis. Child Development, 95(1), 50–69. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13998
The development of attachment in separated and divorced families: Effects of overnight visitation, parent and couple variables
Apply the attachment-network foundation to the first direct study of post-separation overnights.
Use the original publication to verify a claim before relying on it. Read the source-checking limits and correction record.