When parents struggle to connect with their children, the path forward can feel overwhelming. Circle of Security Parenting (COSP) offers hope through its simple yet profound approach to strengthening parent-child relationships. But like any tool, COSP works best when it's the right fit for the situation. Understanding when, how, and with whom COSP is most effective can help parents, professionals, and researchers make informed decisions about this attachment-based program.
Who Was COSP Designed For?
COSP was developed with parents in mind, and specifically those parents experiencing stress in their caregiving relationships. This includes parents who may feel disconnected from their children, or struggle with understanding their child's emotional needs, or those who find themselves caught in cycles of conflict or misunderstanding. The program particularly serves parents who want to connect more deeply with their children but aren't sure how to break through the barriers they're experiencing.
The beauty of COSP lies in its universal appeal—virtually all caregivers want to connect with their children. This makes it an excellent engagement tool that meets parents where they are, regardless of their background or current challenges. Whether you're working with a first-time parent feeling uncertain about their instincts, or an experienced caregiver facing new challenges with a particular child, COSP provides a framework for understanding and responding to children's attachment needs.
When COSP Shines: Ideal Circumstances
COSP works well when parents are motivated to reflect on their relationships and are open to new perspectives. The program's video-based format creates powerful opportunities for insight, allowing parents to organize their observations and describe attachment in action rather than simply discussing what they see in random and abstract terms.
The approach is particularly effective for parents who:
· Feel stuck in negative patterns with their children
· Want to understand their child's behavior through an attachment lens
· Are willing to examine their own responses and triggers
· Have the intellectual and emotional capacity to engage in reflective work
· Are dealing with usual developmental challenges rather than severe trauma or crisis situations
COSP also thrives in supportive group settings where parents can learn from each other's experiences while feeling less isolated in their struggles. The program's emphasis on "good enough" parenting helps reduce perfectionism and shame, creating space for genuine growth and connection.
When COSP May Not Be the Right Fit
While COSP has much to offer, it's important to recognize when other interventions might be needed. COSP is primarily a reflective program designed to enhance the quality of security in relationships between caregivers and children ages four months to six years by building reflective functioning and relational capacity, not a clinical intervention for severe mental health or trauma issues.
The program may not be suitable when:
· Parents are in active crisis requiring immediate safety interventions
· Severe mental health symptoms prevent engagement in reflective work
· Substance abuse issues interfere with consistent participation and application
· There's ongoing domestic violence or other safety concerns
· Parents lack basic stability in housing, food security, or other fundamental needs
· Offered as a stand-alone intervention in clinical settings
In these circumstances, addressing the underlying crisis or providing more intensive clinical support should take priority. COSP can potentially be introduced later once greater stability is achieved.
Evaluating COSP Effectively: A Research Perspective
For those interested in studying COSP's impact, understanding how to design meaningful evaluations is crucial. Effective assessment requires careful attention to several key factors that align with how the program was designed to work.
Target Audience: The most accurate tests of COSP involve participants who match the program's intended population—parents experiencing attachment-related stress who are motivated to participate. Studies should exclude families in active crisis or those requiring more intensive interventions, as these factors could obscure COSP's specific contributions.
COSP was not developed as a stand-alone intervention for high-risk populations, although it can provide foundational learning to enhance the effectiveness when combined with other clinical interventions like Circle of Security – Intensive.
Dosage and Implementation: COSP was designed as a comprehensive program, not a brief intervention. Meaningful evaluation requires adequate exposure to the material with a trained facilitator—typically the full eight-chapter program delivered in-person weekly as intended. Studies examining partial implementation or significantly modified versions don't accurately reflect the model's potential impact.
Outcome Measures: The most relevant outcomes align with COSP's goals of improving parental reflective functioning and self-efficacy, reducing parental distress, and enhancing connection. Measures might include parental confidence, understanding of attachment needs, relationship quality, and children's sense of security. Broad measures of child behavior change alone may miss the program's primary mechanisms of action.
When facilitating COSP with high-risk populations outside the recommended target audience, a relevant outcome aligns with the goal of providing COSP as a parent engagement tool that can be used to get hard to reach caregivers to connect with the facilitator and then to refer struggling families into more intensive interventions.
Study Design: While randomized controlled trials provide valuable evidence, other research approaches can also yield meaningful insights. Longitudinal studies tracking families over time, qualitative research exploring participants' experiences, and program evaluation data all contribute to our understanding of COSP's effectiveness.
The key is ensuring that evaluation methods match the program's theory of change—that parents who gain insight into their children’s attachment needs and develop more attuned responses will experience stronger, more satisfying relationships with their children.
Moving Forward with Confidence
COSP is an internationally recognized approach to supporting parent-child relationships through the lens of attachment science. When implemented with appropriate populations under suitable circumstances, it offers families a pathway to deeper connection and understanding.
For parents considering COSP, the question isn't whether they’re "good enough" to benefit—it's whether it’s the right time to explore new ways of understanding their relationship with their child. With that said, even the most struggling parents report that they have found benefit in their participation in the program. We see COSP as a ‘due no harm’ approach to parenting regardless of the capacities a given parent may bring to the learning experience.
For professionals and researchers, the focus should be on ensuring the right match between the program and participants' needs, while designing evaluations that capture COSP's true impact on the quality of relationships that it was designed to strengthen.
The capacity for connection exists within all of us. COSP provides a simple and accessible roadmap for accessing and nurturing that fundamental human potential.
