Under which conditions do early adolescents need maternal support?

Maternal support is known as a protective factor during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. However, less is known about the conditions leading to support-seeking behaviors toward mothers in early adolescence. In comparison with younger children, it is assumed that the specific nature of these conditions changes with continuing cognitive maturation. To shed light on the normative development of attachment-related behaviors beyond infancy and, more specifically, on the activating conditions for support seeking, 98 early adolescents were instructed to write about a distressing situation during which they needed their mother’s support. Seven distressing conditions could be derived from the current data. Two not previously described age-relevant conditions, academic failure and social conflict, were identified. Notably, 62% of the reported conditions referred to situations Bowlby (1969/1982) originally proposed, empirically confirming the importance of these conditions in early adolescence