Parenting Children & Teens with Reactive Attachment Disorder

Attachment is the deep and lasting connection established between a youngster and caretaker in the first few years of life. It profoundly affects your youngster’s development and his or her ability to express emotions and develop relationships. If you are the parent of a youngster with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), you may be physically and emotionally exhausted from trying to connect with your youngster, only to be met with opposition, defiance, or, maybe hardest of all, indifference. A youngster with insecure attachment or RAD doesn’t have the skills necessary to build meaningful relationships. However, with the right tools, and a healthy dose of time, effort, patience, and love, it is possible to treat and repair attachment difficulties.   ==> Parenting Defiant RAD Teens Understanding attachment problems and disorders— Kids with RAD or other attachment problems have difficulty connecting to others and managing their own emotions. This results in a lack of

Lectures, warnings, hollering, bribes, second chances and reminders do NOT work. You are wasting your time and breath. Your youngster knows the rules – he just refuses to obey your rules! Remember – her actions are often automatic responses learned from infancy. Your youngster is in their element when you have lost your control! Natural Consequences: • Broken object – they must replace it with their own money or with chores. • Did not bring homework home – go back and get it or assign your own homework. • Does not want to eat – no problem, they will not starve, but they will sit at the table while the family eats (NO snack before next meal). • Foul mouth, raised voice, rudeness, and back talk – can be rewarded with chores, exercise (jumping jacks, sit ups, running on the spot) or payment to money jar. • Hurt someone – they must apologize and lose privileges (having friends over, watching TV, playing video games, using the telephone, etc.). Most likely, they will

A major problem with the diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is the painful truth that many of the very individuals we moms and dads turn to for help - professionals in the mental health, neurological, and medical fields - often lack the knowledge and expertise to treat our kids. One of the first doctors I took my youngster to told me that my youngster would end up institutionalized and that if a PET scan were done on his brain, it would look like Swiss cheese - black holes of non activity where there should be brain activity. That there is nothing much I could do for him as "...these Romanian kids were hopeless cases..." My youngster was 7 years old when I was told this by a prominent neurologist. I didn't believe in giving up. This youngster was my responsibility and I would work hard to figure out how to help him. How I would have loved it if there were professionals willing and able to treat my youngster - who believed in positive change in his l