Parenting Children & Teens with Reactive Attachment Disorder

What happens when the mother reassigns a different motive to the child's cry and decides not to be responsive? A youngster cries for a reason - not to manipulate his parent, not to be mean, or nasty, or to be a "pain in the neck." When, instead of trying to discern what her youngster needs, a mother simply says - "oh, he's just tired," or "he has to deal with sleeping by himself now" - she has given her baby the idea that expressing his inner-self is wrong or bad. A baby is like someone who is quadriplegic. He can't do very much for himself - but that doesn't mean that he isn't thinking and feeling. When the baby cries and his mother responds, the youngster learns to have trust in the world around him and to have trust in himself. When the baby cries and his mother listens, the two join together in a moment of oneness that transcends the separateness, the aloneness, which the baby knows all too well. If the youngster has not

What doesn't work: 1. Attempting to persuade the RAD youngster to change his mind by presenting “logical, reasonable, or “practical information”. RAD kids are highly unlikely to be influenced by reasonableness. Adult efforts to do so look “stupid” to a RAD youngster an can intensify his lack of feeling safe. 2. Emotional reactivity. RAD kids experience parents' frustration and anger as proof that the youngster is effectively controlling his parents' emotions. This only inflates their grandiose sense of power. 3. Negotiating with a RAD youngster. 4. Rescuing the youngster from the consequences of her behavior and / or attempting to solve the RAD youngster's problems for her. Philosophy— While love and parental common sense are necessary ingredients to successfully parent a youngster with attachment difficulties, they are rarely sufficient. This is due to the fact that most kids with attachment problems are too guarded and too distrustful to rec

How the Attachment Bond Shapes Adult Relationships— You were born pre-programmed to bond with one very significant person—your primary caretaker, probably your mother. Like all babies, you were a bundle of emotions—intensely experiencing fear, anger, sadness, and joy.  The emotional attachment that grew between you and your caretaker was the first interactive relationship of your life, and it depended upon nonverbal communication. The bonding you experienced determined how you would relate to other human beings throughout your life, because it established the foundation for all verbal and nonverbal communication in your future interactions. People who experience confusing, frightening, or broken emotional communications during their infancy often grow into grown-ups who have difficulty understanding their own emotions and the feelings of others. This limits their ability to build or maintain successful interactions. Attachment—the interaction between babies and their primary