Reactive Attachment Disorder in Young Girls

Attachment and affection is a deep connection that is established between the child and parents, which intensely affects the child's development and their ability to build meaningful relationships in their life. But sometimes a child might face some attachment issues and falls in the category of Reactive attachment disorder (RAD), which may exhaust the parents to connect with their child.

Reactive attachment disorder is a relatively rare and severe condition, in which teens are unable to establish the long lasting and healthy bond with their parents or guardians. While this condition is uncommon, it is serious. In many cases, the child suffering from RAD has been a victim of abuse, abandonment, neglected, or has been an orphan.

These children have never established a loving and caring environment or have never been attached to anyone. As parents, you can make an effort by showing them the affection they need, or you can enroll them in any therapeutic boarding school for girls, where they help the girls to establish affection.

Undeveloped attachment can permanently damage a child’s growing ability and impair their ability to establish relationships. It can also lead to aggressiveness, offending behavior, trouble connecting to peers, and other problems.

Causes 
When a child is unable to connect with parents, or her needs are ignored the then after a period of time the child leans into resentment and becomes distrustful as well as isolated. These emotional discontents between parents and teens can affect the mental development, causing attachment problems, and affecting relations throughout her life.

Risk Factor
•    Frequent changes in caregivers
•    Extreme neglect
•    Living in an orphanage
•    Extreme poverty
•    Prolonged hospitalization
•    Inexperienced parents
•    A mother who has post-partum depression
•    Institutional care
•    Removed from neglectful or abusive home
•    Physical, sexual, or verbal abuse
•    Parents with mental illness, drug abuse, or anger management problems
Although, some of the causes of RAD are unavoidable, and this belief is challenging for a teen to overcome, the belief that “she doesn’t matter” can haunt her throughout her life.

Signs and symptoms
Reactive attachment disorder can unconstructively influence the child’s development stages. Some common signs and symptoms are:

Inhibited type:
•    Detached
•    Unresponsive
•    Resistant
•    Withdrawn
•    Avoidant
•    Shuns relationships

Disinhibited type:
•    Indiscriminate sociability
•    Inappropriately familiar
•    Selective in choices
•    Seeks attention from anyone
•    Displays childish behavior
•    Violates social boundaries

Effects
The complications of RAD continue until adulthood, causing long-lasting negative effects. Some of these include:

•    Poor self-esteem
•    Challenges in academics
•    Antisocial behavior
•    Alcohol addiction
•    Anger issues
•    Relationship problems
•    Deferred physical growth or learning
•    Depression
•    Anxiety
•    Leading to malnutrition or obesity
•    Inappropriate sexual behaviors
•    Unemployment or frequent job changes

If your girl is suffering from reactive attachment disorder, seek professional help take her to therapeutic boarding school for girls, where she can get proper support. This can create a positive change in her life, the earlier you seek assistance, the better.

Teen Trouble - Depression and Anxiety

Anxiety and depression are the most common issues taking place in the society. The adolescent age can be tremendously tough, as depression affects teenagers easily than one realizes. It can devastate the soul of a teen’s personality by causing sadness, misery, or resentment.

Anyone can be a victim of depression but as girls mature faster in term of emotions and sensitivity, it leads them towards depression and anxiety more easily.

 Most of the times, teenagers face a lot of pressure of figuring out who they are, which leads them to over-thinking, and this somehow results in depression. With this turmoil, it becomes difficult to find out whether the teen is suffering or not. Sometimes, it looks like these are mood swings because of puberty, but teen depression goes beyond mood swings. It’s a serious problem that a teen faces which mostly goes unnoticed.

Fortunately, it can be treated with proper support and guidance. There are many organizations that conduct programs for troubled teens, like the ones affected by depression, anxiety, impulsiveness, frequent mood swings, bullying, and many more.

Symptoms
In teen depression, the first thing you notice is the withdrawal from certain activities, There can be other changes like frequent aggression, stubbornness, sadness, irritability, drop or increase in energy level, lower academic grades, and change in sleeping patterns. If you see any of these symptoms, be vigilant, there can be a possibility of depression.

Not only parents but also for the teens, it takes a while to realize that their emotional responses and thinking are disturbed. It might take some time to notice, but when you do find out that they are losing interest in certain things, you should seek professional help without wasting any time.

Anxiety is a major cause of losing interest, as the fear of losing or doing certain things makes it obvious not to take part in activities. Sometimes, the pressure is too much on a teen that they get nervous and this result in lack of performance. Anxiety becomes a major problem when it’s out of proportion, and interrupts with a teen’s mental functionality.

Reason
There is no single known factor of depression in teens multiple factors might leads to depression

•    Stressful life events
•    Loss of someone close
•    Peer pressure
•    Bullying
•    Inadequacy in grades,
•    Family issues like parent’s separation or their alcoholic problems.

Treatments 
Unlike adults, who can seek help on their own, teens basically rely on their parents, teachers, or friends to identify their pain. Everyone is different, so for one, the symptoms can be sadness and grief, and for others, it can be anger and agitation.

Early intervening and involvement of healthcare professionals can treat depression well in time. The best way to treat your teen is to attend counseling sessions or enroll them in a boarding school.

There are a lot of boarding schools offering programs for troubled girls, which help in their treatment from moderate to severe depression. When you learn that your child is in depression, relying on one treatment will not be fair, you should go for psychological as well as medical treatment for early recovery.

Facing Difficulty in Handling your Teenager?

The teenage phase is difficult to handle, and being parents, it gets hard to manage if your child is an overdramatic teenager. Controlling the behavior is easy, but when it comes to emotions, you can’t bar with them. Your child might have excessive anger issues, but you need to cool it. Your teen will try to push your limits, but you have to stay patient.

You can help your child to handle the anger issues and avoid getting aggressive all the time. Here are some suggestions to pour cold water on.

Communication is the key
Any relation or situation demands communication, and communicating with your child is very important. You should not accept that your teen can control the way they feel. All they need to manage is the way they respond to the situation. It’s okay to get angry but it’s not good to get violent.

Don’t get into an argument
Your teen’s outburst will prompt negative responses from you but controlling this should be prominent. Prepare yourself to get patient with your child and maintain an emotional distance. Yes, sometimes they might behave in a disrespectful manner, which you’re unable to absorb. But instead of asserting, find out the ways you can handle this situation.

Acknowledge the behavior
Acknowledge what is making them aggressive, ask them to explain why they felt to respond the way they did. You should listen to understand instead of blaming, this is how you can find out effective solutions.

Mentor and motivate your child to maintain a proper decorum. Teens feel apologetic after behaving in such a manner, your guidance will help them to handle their behavior in a healthy manner. You can follow these suggestions to handle your teen or enroll them in Therapeutic boarding school, which will help them to deal with their overdramatic behavior and emotional challenges.