Childhood emotional neglect can be hard to name, especially when a teen’s history isn’t fully known. For foster and adoptive parents, this is often the reality. You are raising a child whose emotional needs went unmet before they came to you, sometimes across multiple homes or placements, and sometimes from the very beginning of their
How to Recognize Childhood Emotional Neglect in a Teen Read More »
In families under chronic stress, members often settle into fixed roles that keep the household functioning. Dysfunctional family roles describe those patterns: the specific parts a child, parent, or sibling takes on to manage conflict, unpredictability, addiction, or emotional pain in the home. They aren’t formal diagnoses or permanent identities. They’re survival strategies that develop
RAD symptoms in teens can be the last thing considered when a parent is trying to make sense of their teenager’s behavior. Most of what clinicians and families learn about reactive attachment disorder focuses on early childhood. Reactive attachment disorder typically develops in the first years of life, when early caregiving experiences shape how a
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Families naturally support one another through difficulty. Sometimes, though, that support tips into a pattern where one person’s needs, moods, or struggles consume the emotional life of the whole household. Codependency in families describes that pattern, and it rarely develops from a lack of love. It develops from care under sustained pressure. For teens growing
Codependency in Families: How It Develops and What It Does to Teens Read More »
