Rupture and repair: why good enough is enough
Synopsis: Research by developmental psychologist Ed Tronick found even loving parents and babies are in sync only around 30 per cent of the time. What builds secure attachment isn't perfection but "rupture and repair": noticing a mismatch and finding the way back. Each repair teaches a child that feelings matter and people are reliable, not perfect. The same is true for adult partners. No couple is always in step. Secure relationships are built on the willingness to notice, reach back, take responsibility and reconnect. Getting it wrong is part of the design. What counts is what you do next.
Developmental psychologist Ed Tronick spent decades filming parents and babies at play, then studying the footage moment by moment. What he found surprised many people. Even in loving, healthy relationships, parent and baby are in sync only around 30 per cent of the time. The rest of the time they are slightly out of step. A parent misreads a cue, looks away at the wrong moment, or tries to soothe when the baby wants to play. Then, most of the time, they find their way back to each other.
Tronick called this ‘rupture and repair’. A mismatch happens, the baby signals that something is off, the parent adjusts, and the pair reconnect. This happens over and over, many times in a few minutes of ordinary play.
Nature is a generous designer. It doesn’t ask us to be perfect parents. It asks us to be what the paediatrician Donald Winnicott calls “good enough”. A parent who got it right every time would leave a child less prepared for life, because that child would never get to practise one of the most important relationship skills of all: finding the way back after things go wrong.
In fact, secure attachment needs both. It needs connection: those moments of being truly seen and met. And it needs rupture and repair. Each time a small break is mended, a child learns something deep and lasting. When things go wrong, we can put them right. My feelings matter. The people I love will come back to me.
Through repair, we learn that people are reliable, not that people are perfect. That is a much sturdier foundation. A child who expects perfection can be shattered by their first disappointment. A child who has learned that ruptures can be repaired can tolerate disappointment, stay in the relationship and trust that closeness can be restored.
This matters well beyond childhood. The same pattern plays out between adult partners. No couple is in sync all the time. Misunderstandings, missed moments and disappointments are part of every close relationship. What makes a relationship secure isn’t the absence of rupture. It’s the willingness and ability to repair: to notice, to reach back, to take responsibility and to reconnect.
So if you’re a parent worried about getting it wrong, or a partner who wishes you never argue, take heart. Getting it wrong is part of the design. What counts is what you do next.
Reference
Ed Tronick and Claudia M. Gold, The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships Are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust (Scribe Publications, 2020).
