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Children differ greatly in the age at which specific attachment occurs. Among the 60 babies in the Schaffer and Emerson study, 1 showed specific attachment at 22 weeks, whereas 2 did not display it until after their first birthdays (Van IJzendoorn & Sagi, 1999). Cross-cultural differences also play a part in this development. Mary Ainsworth found that infants in Uganda show specific attachment at about 6 months of agea month or so earlier than the Scottish infants studied by Schaffer and Emerson (1964). Similarly, it was found that separation protest occurred earlier among infants in Guatemala than among those in the United States (Lester et al., 1974). Researchers attribute the precocity of the Ugandan and Guatemalan infants to cultural factors. Ugandan infants spend most of their time in close physical contact with their mothers (they are carried about on their mother's back), and they are rarely separated from her. Generally, American infants are placed in their own rooms shortly after birth. Such separation is virtually unknown in Guatemala, where most rural families live in a one-room rancho. Other research findings with a small sample of Colombian mothers and infants support Ainsworth's concepts of attachment theory (Posada et al., 2004). Schaffer (1971, 1996) suggests that the onset of separation protest is directly related to a child's level of object permanence. Social attachment depends on the ability of infants to differentiate between their mother and strangers and on their ability to recognize that their mother continues to exist even when she is not visible. In terms of Piaget's cognitive theory, outlined in Chapter 5, these abilities do not appear until late in the sensorimotor stage, Indeed, Silvia M. Bell (197D) finds that in some instances the concept of person permanencethe notion that an individual exists independently of immediate visibilitymight appear in a child before the concept of object permanence. Studies by other researchers also confirm that protests over parental departures are related to a child's level of cognitive development (Kagan, 1997; Klaus & Klaus, 1998). How Do Attachments Form? Psychologists have advanced two explanations of the origins or determinants of attachment, one based on an ethological perspective and the other on a learning perspective. Psychoanalytically oriented ethologist John Bowlby (1969, 1988) said that attachment behaviours have biological underpinnings that can be best understood from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective. For the human species to survive despite an extended period of infant immaturity and vulnerability, both mothers and infants are endowed with innate tendencies to be close to each other. This reciprocal bonding functioned to protect the infant from predators when humans lived in small nomadic groups (Bowlby, 1969, 1988). According to Bowlby, human infants are biologically pre-adapted with a number of behavioural systems ready to be activated by appropriate "elicitors" or "releasers" within the environment. Close physical contactespecially hold-ing, caressing, and rockingoften soothes and quiets a distressed, fussing infant. Indeed, an infant's crying literally compels attention from a caregiver, and smiles accomplish much the same end (Grossman, Grossman, & Kindler, 2005).

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Children of Divorce
Each child reacts differently to the breakup of a family, depending on the child's age and temperament and the parents' competence in handling the situation (Hartup & van Lieshout, 1995). Children ages 6 to 12 need to know what the separation is about. Their concerns are very different from the concerns of parents, and parents can be too occupied to notice. Children of separationdivorce have loyalty stresses (Schlesinger, 1998). High levels of parental conflict have a significant impact on children regard-less of family structure (Vandewater & Lansford, 1998). To adjust to the divorce, children need a sense of safety and closeness to their parents and need to have their basic needs met. Children feel lower levels of conflict when their parents cooperate in matters relating to childcare. Wallerstein and Kelly (1980; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2000) found that children have six psychological tasks to complete after a divorce, and the ease of completing these tasks is related to how well the parents handle the divorce. These include: (1) accepting that the divorce is real; (2) getting back into previous routines like school and other activities; (3) resolving the loss of the family, which means having a distant or absent parent, restructured fam-ily traditions, and loss of security; (4) resolving anger and self-blame, followed by forgiveness; (5) accepting that the divorce will be permanent; and (6) believing in relation-ships. Many schools offer children of separationdivorce the opportunity to join support programs such as Banana Splits. Children get together in peer groups with a school social worker or school psychologist to share their feelings and experiences and to give and get advice. These pro-grams teach children how to cope with their feelings of loss, fear, helplessness, anxiety, or anger. Divorce affects children's development in complex ways, with many confounding factors involved. While most children adjust in time, some are troubled for years after the divorce (Kelly, 2007). In one study, children were interviewed a few years after their parents had divorced (children were then ages 6 to 8), and a majority of the girls and boys were well adjusted. Most children lived with their mothers, about 5 per cent lived with their fathers, and the rest lived with other kin (often grandparents) or in foster homes. Overall, children who have a stable, loving relationship with both parents have fewer emotional scars (Ahrons, 2007; Kelly, 2007).