When you are faced with a teenage suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder, it is important to address the issues behind a patient’s lack of affection for his or her family. Once the reasons behind his or her lack of affection have been traced, these issues may be properly tackled in therapy.
For example, given a situation where the disorder may have sprung from the lack of a child’s basic needs being met during the period he or she was left to stay with relatives while the parents were away on business; it would be important to let the child’s parents have an active role in therapy.
Because of the lack of the presence of the parents during the child’s formative years, he or she may have definitely developed some issues with regards to his or her parental relationship. These issues may have been the cause of the Reactive Attachment Disorder.
When faced with a teen like this, in order to help him or her it would be of key importance to be there for him or her now, even if you were unable to be there for the child at an earlier stage of his or her life. Showing support for your teenager by taking an active part in outpatient treatment or therapy is crucial to his or her development in treatment.
If you choose to have your son or daughter treated in a residential treatment center, inpatient treatment has been known to have much success in the treatment of disorders such as RAD. But even if you decide on inpatient treatment for your teen, it would be truly beneficial if you took part in his or her daily therapy while at the center.
If the cause of Reactive Attachment Disorder springs from the lack of presence or absence of a parent in a teen’s formative years, then it wouldn’t be as constructive to just leave the troubled teen to the treatment center’s supervision. If your absence may have been a trigger of the RAD then your presence now can be of help to the treatment of your teen.
In the example given above, it would be helpful to talk to your teen about his or her feelings during the time that he or she was left with relatives while you were away on business.
Asking questions like, How did it make you feel when we had to leave you with relatives? How did you feel specifically towards us, your parents? What kinds of things were going through your mind while we were away? Getting to the root of any unresolved issues your teen may have with you, can be productive for his or her RAD treatment.
