I have seen this on several different discussion groups, and it’s been bothering me. Parents are willing to accept that their child has attachment issues, but when it is diagnosed as “full blown RAD”, then they panic.

As Nancy has said, attachment is a continuum. Yes, some children have more attachment issues than other, and some can ‘heal” faster than others, but adding one letter to a diagnosis shouldn’t be something this scary.

When I look up the symptoms for attachment disorder and reactive attachment disorder, they are the same. There are different TYPES of attachment disorder, and they have been around for years.

They are:

• Secure




• Insecure/Anxious or Ambivalent




• Insecure/Avoidant




• Insecure/Disorganized

Each of these subcategories or types has its own characteristics. You can read them here. They are still all a form of attachment disorder, the difference is in how the child manifests the trauma that happened.

Children who have been neglected may fall into the anxious category. They are afraid for people to leave them so they cling to their caretaker, rarely letting them out of their sight, and panicking if they can’t find the caretaker.

The children who fall into the avoidant subcategory will be friendly with everyone and anyone but not form real emotional attachments to anyone. They have been hurt when they allowed themselves to trust and love, so they avoid it at all costs.

The point is that it is all still attachment based and still needs to be parented the same way. I will parent and avoidant child slightly differently than an anxious child, but I’m still going to use the basics of attachment and therapeutic parenting. And I’m going to do the same things whether it’s called REACTIVE Attachment Disorder or simply Attachment Disorder. It’s about treating the child and not the label.

Many children will go through the types of attachment disorder as they heal. Hannah went from avoidant to anxious to secure. It’s a process.

For some reason, I could site several theories, RAD has gotten a bad wrap, and a big scary reputation. Not all kids with RAD are animal abusers or will turn into killers. These kids are suffering from trauma first and foremost. Helping them heal from the trauma is the key to helping them become emotionally healthy kids.

Let’s stop worrying so much about labels.

Symptom checklist for attachment disorder

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