Good-Enough Parenting: What Winnicott and Tronick Teach Us About Attachment

Perfection Is Not the Goal

Many new parents...especially people who grew up in dysfunctional families...carry the fear:

What if I don’t get this right? What if my baby doesn't feel loved?

Attachment research offers reassuring news.

Healthy attachment is not built through constant attunement or flawless parenting. It develops through repeated moments of connection — including moments of rupture and repair.

Two influential thinkers help us understand this: Donald Winnicott and Edward Tronick.

Winnicott and “Good-Enough” Parenting

Winnicott introduced the idea of the good-enough mother (now more broadly called good-enough parenting).

He observed that infants do not need perfect caregivers. In fact, perfection would interfere with development.

Early in life, caregivers respond quickly and almost seamlessly. Over time, small delays and manageable frustrations naturally occur.

These tolerable disruptions allow the infant to gradually build resilience and a sense of separate self.

In Winnicott’s view:

• Minor failures are inevitable

• Small frustrations are developmental

• Repair builds strength

  
  

The goal is not perfection.The goal is “good enough” — responsiveness most of the time, with repair when things go off track.

Tronick and the Power of Repair

Decades later, Edward Tronick’s research deepened this understanding.

In his well-known “Still-Face Experiment,” a caregiver interacts normally with an infant, then suddenly becomes emotionally neutral and unresponsive.

Within seconds, the infant attempts to re-engage.

If the lack of response continues, the infant becomes distressed.

But the most important finding was not the distress.

It was what happened next.

When the caregiver resumed normal interaction, the infant’s nervous system settled. Repair restored connection.

Tronick’s research showed that caregivers and infants are mismatched much of the time — some studies estimate around 60–70% of interactions are not perfectly synchronized.

Secure attachment does not require constant harmony. It requires repeated repair.

Hearing Edward Tronick speak years ago deepened my understanding of how rupture and repair shape attachment across the lifespan.

Similar findings appear in adult relationship research. Psychologist John Gottman found that even stable couples frequently miss each other’s bids for connection and disagree about many ongoing issues.

Gottman found that this same pattern appears in what Gottman calls “turning toward” — the small, everyday moments when partners respond to one another’s bids for connection.

What predicts relationship strength is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to repair and reconnect.

Across the lifespan, secure relationships are built through repair.

Attachment Is Reciprocal

Attachment refers to the infant’s biologically driven system for seeking safety.

But attachment develops within a reciprocal relationship.

The infant signals distress.The caregiver responds.The infant settles.The caregiver adjusts.

Over thousands of micro-interactions, both nervous systems shape one another.

Secure attachment is not a single event.It is a pattern built gradually through responsiveness and repair.

Why This Matters for Parents

Many myths about bonding suggest that:

• You must feel instant love

• You must never miss cues

• Early disruptions ruin everything

• You must be emotionally available at all times

  
  

None of this is supported by contemporary attachment research.

What builds security is:

• Returning after distraction

• Apologizing when you lose patience

• Reconnecting after conflict

• Showing up consistently enough

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Repair teaches the child:

Relationships can bend and recover.

Disconnection is not permanent.

I am safe even when things are imperfect.

The Deeper Truth

Healthy attachment is not fragile.

It is resilient.

It grows in ordinary moments — feeding, rocking, eye contact, laughter, soothing after tears.

You do not need to parent perfectly.

You need to return to connection.