Couple Connection Skills For Couples With Young Children

Couples with young children are often stressed and can feel disconnected while trying to navigate competing priorities:  You're busy taking care of your kids, busy working to provide, sharing household chores and responsibilities, and trying to carve out couple and individual time.  

If you can learn and practice healthy attachment skills of connection, this will help you nurture the positives in your relationships with your spouse/partner and your children, even if you didn’t have the best role models.  

According to Diane Poole-heller, Ph.D., “Our attachment style is the original blueprint for how we perceive, connect with and relate to others and the world around us - and it often informs our adult relationships unconsciously.”

What’s your attachment style?

According to Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. the following are her descriptions of three of the attachment styles: Secure Attachment, Avoidant Attachment, and Anxious Attachment.

SECURE ATTACHMENT

Secure Attachment Looks like:

• Presence and Support
• Autonomy and Independence
• Relaxation
• Trust
• Resilience
• Playfulness and Kind Humor

Attributes of Secure Attachment: 

• Aliveness, vitality
• Feel safe to show up, be authentic
• Ability to form connection
• Age appropriate individuation
• Playful
• Express needs and emotions easily
• Basic trust
• Feel lovable, cared for, protected
• Perceive the world as friendly 
• Can relax in relationship

AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT

Avoidant Attachment looks like:

• Not attuned to need; often absent, flat affect
• Often non-responsive or dismissive
• May actively neglect or reject needs
• Doesn’t relate emotionally, often non-emotional.
• Vacant, not present
• Rejecting, critical
• Only present when tasking, task-oriented contact

Attributes of Avoidant Attachment:

• Shutdown
• Isolated
• Miss connection cues
• Strongly logical and rationally oriented; task focused
• Fewer words
• Struggle to recognize and feel emotions
• Denies own needs
• Extreme autonomy, “I’ll do it myself”
• Overfocus on self, but sense of self has gaps
• Doesn’t miss people who are significant
• Dissociative
• Stress in connection
• Abrupt shifts away from connection - can be dismissive when interrupted

AMBIVALENT/ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT

Ambivalent/Anxious Attachment looks like:

• Inconsistently responsive or unpredictable
• On-again/off-again parenting 
• Self-absorbed, preoccupied with their own attachment wounds
• Intrusive, no boundaries; intrude their own disrupted state on child
• Role reversal / crossing generational boundaries; child is expected to take on adult roles or responsibilities
• Disrupted affect modulation (ability to navigate and manage emotional terrain); caregivers may disrupt this and make it difficult for a child to self-soothe.

Attributes of Ambivalent / Anxious Attachment:

• Anxious, insecure, disappointed, angry
• Interpersonal stress on separation; clinginess
• Over-focus on other
• Urgent need - signal cry stuck on “ON”
• Complains or criticizes as a signal cry
• No hope - convinced of disappointment in relationships
• Inability to see caring behaviors even while asking for them
• Can feel a chronic lack of fulfillment or satisfaction in their important relationships because they don’t take in or receive the connection
• Takes on responsibility:  it’s my fault; I’m not lovable
• Desperately wants connection along with disabling fear of losing it
• Ignores caring behaviors
• Negatively misreads cues for connection; interprets as slight or signal of abandonment

The good news is even if you didn’t have a healthy childhood, it’s important to know you are hardwired to connect with loved ones, or what is called secure attachment.  Many couples with young children often want to be better parents than their parents were to them.  How about extending this to yourself and your spouse/partner as well!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and many couples like you, with young children are often focused on your little ones and wanting to make them feel loved, safe and secure.  The good news is the same skills you use to connect with your little ones, can also help you stay connected with your spouse or partner.  Try the skills below to practice returning back to secure attachment in your relationships.

Skills for Couple Connection:

• Listening:  Remember you don’t have to agree with everything your partner has to say, the goal is to show them you really heard their perspective, thoughts and feelings.  You want to be curious and interested is what they are trying to tell you.
• Presence:  I know this is hard for busy couples with young children who have so many competing priorities, but a little focused presence and attention on a consistent basis goes a long way.
• Tone of Voice:  A soothing tone of voice is more nurturing, comforting and reassuring.  In contrast, a raised voice can be alarming, signal danger, and upset.  Remember to focus on your goal of wanting to connect and be loving when you are trying to connect with your partner or your child.
• Safe, Affectionate Touch:  Touch can be a powerful form of connection and closeness.  A gentle, reassuring hug, a pat on the back, a hand on the back of a shoulder,  (that says I have your back), or more sensual, intimate touch for romantic relationships.
• Soft Eyes:  A gentle, loving gaze that communicates, “I love you”, or a compassionate gaze that says, “I feel your sadness, hurt, sorrow”, or a whimsical, playful gaze that communicates playfulness and fun.  These are very different then angry, stressed, or anxious eyes which have a furrow between your eyes that communicate anger, disappointment, anxiety, and frustration.
• Playfulness and Joy:  Remember to make time for play and laughter in your relationships with your spouse/partner and your children.  Laughter and playfulness help ease tension and are a good reminder of being kind to each other.
• Calm and Relaxation:  Practice on being open minded, calm and relaxed when you’re interacting with your spouse/partner, and your kids.  Taking calm, relaxing breaths, and reminding yourself that each of you can have different perspectives and feelings that are equally important.  
• Self and Co-Regulation:  Making room to be present with your own emotions and your partner’s emotions can be challenging, but with awareness, practice and repetition you can make this a healthy practice.  Overtime, you will see you can even learn to manage the intensity of big emotions as well.
• Repair:  It’s hard to be present and great listeners all the time.  You can make mistakes and attempt to fix them by taking accountability and sharing a genuine apology for what you did.  Remember, it’s not your intention to hurt your partner or your child, but it is important to try and repair the hurt as a way to clear the air, and attend to your loved one.

Remember you don’t have to do this alone.  Talk to your spouse/partner, or a good friend for support.  You could also benefit from speaking with a licensed professional therapist to help you get back to healthy and secure attachment in your important relationships.

For more information, contact Redwood City, California Licensed Marriage Therapist,  Lori J. Collins at Lorijcollins.com or email: [email protected].

Adapted from Diane Poole-Heller, Ph.D.                 © 2025 Lori J Collins, M.S., MFT