Why Parents Can’t Heal Childhood Trauma With Love Alone
- Anonymous
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
Every parent of a child with reactive attachment disorder (RAD) or developmental trauma eventually finds themselves asking: How do I help my child to heal from childhood trauma?
My husband and I believed we were ready. We had done the research, taken the classes, and embraced therapeutic parenting techniques with open hearts. Caseworkers reassured us that love and consistency would be enough. We believed that with time and nurture, our children would naturally attach.
But no one prepared us for what would happen when those efforts weren’t enough. No one warned us about reactive attachment disorder (learn more about RAD and what causes it here). In fact, we didn’t even know what it was — not until years into our parenting journey, when everything began to fall apart.
Why Love Isn’t Enough to Heal Childhood Trauma
From the beginning, we sensed that our son Joe — later diagnosed with severe reactive attachment disorder — was different. At first, we assumed he was simply exhibiting typical behavior for a traumatized toddler. We leaned into therapeutic parenting strategies, believing that love, time, and consistency would help him heal.
But we were wrong.
Caseworkers reassured us that love and consistency would be enough. We believed that with time and nurture, our children would naturally attach. But no one prepared us for when those efforts weren't enough.
Joe had endured severe abuse and neglect during his first years of life. We assumed he would recognize the safety of our home and want to be part of our nurturing family. What we didn’t understand was that his early trauma had built a foundation of deep mistrust — especially of primary caregivers — and a compulsive need to control his environment to feel safe. This fundamentally altered his brain development and made him unable to develop empathy or experience true safety, even in a safe environment (learn how toxic stress can change the brain during important early development here and here).
Joe’s behavior reflected that. Even as a young child, he exhibited manipulative and destructive behaviors — self-protection through control — without remorse for the aftermath of his behaviors.
By the time he was 3 or 4, we knew something deeper was wrong. PTSD and ADHD were mentioned, but those didn’t fit what we were experiencing. At age 7, we finally heard the words “reactive attachment disorder.” By that point, we were exhausted and desperate for answers (read about what RAD is like in a family setting).
Why Healing Requires the Child’s Willingness and Ability to Attach
Forrest Lien, LCSW — an internationally recognized expert on RAD and keynote speaker at navRAD, the flagship conference hosted by RAD Advocates — explains that the healing journey is about more than just the child. “Parents want to know how to help their child heal,” says Lien. “But they also want to know how to help their family function while parenting a child with RAD.” According to Lien, the key to both is something called "buy-in."
Lien describes buy-in as the set of conditions that make it safe for a child to begin connecting with their caregivers. He explains that when a child with RAD starts to experience moments of safety and vulnerability, those experiences can gradually lead to emotional connection, empathy, and eventually, a desire to belong to the family: "Buy-in is the environment and circumstances that allow the child to safely experience vulnerability, ideally leading to an increased emotional connection to and reliance on parents that builds empathy and a desire to participate in a family." But they need to want it for themselves.
In short: no one can force a child to heal. The child must have the ability to change, make the choice to do so, and then participate in their own healing. While it is possible to help them want to make that choice, love alone doesn’t make it possible. Parents need professional intervention from specialists and ongoing support. Healing from reactive attachment disorder requires more than nurture — it requires a full circle of care.
What Buy-In Looks Like in the Healing Process for Childhood Trauma
Lien outlines four essential components that must be present — not just in the child, but in the family and treatment setting — before real healing can begin:
1. Children With RAD Must Be Willing and Able to Connect
No amount of parental effort can force a child struggling from the impact of childhood trauma to want connection. This is perhaps the hardest truth for families to accept.
Children with RAD have often learned that adults — especially those who are nurturing — are unsafe. They are so impacted by early trauma that they view vulnerability as dangerous. In these cases, children must first develop the capacity to feel safe before they can choose to connect.
No one warned us about reactive attachment disorder. In fact, we didn’t even know what it was — not until years into our parenting journey, when everything began to fall apart.
Joe’s two biological siblings, whom we also adopted, had attachment issues — but not reactive attachment disorder. I was able to teach them to seek out help from adults when someone was hurt or needed care. That lesson stuck. Just recently, my youngest son (now 14) came to me to ask for feminine hygiene products for a classmate in need. He told her, "I knew my mom would help."
Joe never made that kind of connection. Once, for example, he pulled a portable basketball hoop down on himself. He came inside bleeding, yet insisted he wasn’t hurt — all the way to the hospital. He rejected care because it meant acknowledging he needed someone else. He didn’t want my nurturing as his mom.
Some children can learn to want and trust a parent, but not all — especially if the level of developmental trauma is severe. In some cases, a child may initially show signs of buy-in, but comorbid diagnoses like bipolar disorder may emerge later and resurface behaviors. In those instances, medications may help stabilize symptoms and reopen the path to buy-in (Read "When Reactive Attachment Disorder Looks Like Something Else and the Medication Consequences" here).
2. Families Must Remain Stable Enough to Support Connection
Reactive attachment disorder doesn’t just affect the child — it impacts the entire family system. As behaviors escalate, the emotional toll on parents and siblings can be overwhelming. Without a timely diagnosis and the right support, families often begin to break down (read about how RAD can lead to PTSD in parents and siblings here).
Parents may become so depleted that offering consistent vulnerability and safety feels impossible. Instead of calmly leading the household, they shift into survival mode — and the child, or more accurately, the disorder, takes control.
Some parents, worn down by repeated emotional injuries, start to shut down in self-protection. Vulnerability feels too risky. In some cases, the emotional strain is so great that the only path toward healing — for both the child and the family — is through temporary or permanent out-of-home placement (read "Why a Safe Home Isn’t Enough for Kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder"). These decisions are never easy, but they can be critical for restoring safety, stability, and the potential for healing down the road.
3. Families Need Respite Care That Provides Safety and Neutrality
All families caring for a child with reactive attachment disorder will need some form of respite — time for the child to step away from the family so everyone can regroup. Even when RAD-specific respite isn’t available, having some space can be a lifeline. It won’t restore emotional stability on its own, but it may offer just enough relief to move the family out of crisis mode.
However, not all respite contributes to healing. For respite to support the child — not just offer temporary survival for the parents — it must provide structure, consistency, and emotional neutrality. When providers try to engage the child emotionally or make the experience fun and rewarding, it can backfire. The child may feel safer in that environment than at home, reinforcing their avoidance of connection.
Respite that’s done well keeps the child safe — but intentionally lacks emotional pressure, rewards, or bonding attempts. As Lien describes it, effective respite should feel “boring.” This absence of stimulation creates contrast. It gives the child an opportunity to feel what life is like without the belonging of a family. Over time, that contrast may help them recognize — or at least tolerate — the value of connection at home.
This doesn’t mean the child suddenly wants to attach. In fact, the goal isn’t instant transformation. Rather, as Lien often explains, this is the “fake it until they make it” stage — when a child may begin cooperating with structure even if they don’t yet feel connected, because the alternative isn’t more exciting or entertaining.
In short: no one can force a child to heal. The child must have the ability to change, make the choice to do so, and then participate in their own healing. While it is possible to help them want to make that choice, love alone doesn’t make it possible.
Not everyone is equipped to provide this type of care. Grandparents, for example, are often too emotionally invested to uphold the necessary boundaries. As Lien notes, when caregivers give in to a child’s demands or soften expectations, they can unintentionally undermine the healing process.
The role of the respite provider isn’t to form a bond or become a substitute parent. It’s to maintain predictable, neutral structure — and in doing so, preserve the possibility of connection when the child returns home. Meanwhile, the break allows parents to step out of the discipline role and focus on rebuilding the relationship — the very work that’s often impossible in a home consumed by survival.
Joe once spent time in an out-of-home placement that completely missed the mark. He wasn’t required to attend school or therapy. He played basketball and swam every day. Ice cream was served with every meal. While it may have looked like a break for him, it was a setback for our family. He began acting out just to get back there — not to get closer to us.
4. RAD-Informed Providers Must Lead the Family Through Healing
Healing from reactive attachment disorder requires more than standard therapy (read "Why Traditional Therapy Doesn't Usually Work (and Can Even Make Things Worse) for Kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder"). It requires professionals who deeply understand the disorder and can guide the entire family system — not just the child.
Lien cautions that even when a child is capable of connection and the family remains intact, healing will stall without the right guidance. The treatment must prioritize attachment, not just behavior management.
That’s why parents should always be present in therapy sessions. Building the parent-child bond is the heart of healing. Rules and strategies are secondary to connection. "It rarely works when the parent, especially the mother if she is the nurturing enemy, tries to enforce rules and consequences without first working on the emotional connection," says Lien. "Rules and consequences only really work when the child cares about connecting with the parent."
Unfortunately, many well-meaning providers focus first on outward behavior or peer relationships. But without a strong bond between child and parent, those efforts rarely last. Specialists in RAD understand that the parent-child connection must be rebuilt before any other part of the family dynamic can truly improve.
Choosing Attachment: What Joe’s Story Taught Us
Looking back, I often wonder: What if we had received the right diagnosis earlier? What if the right professionals had been involved from the start? What if we had understood the concept of buy-in before everything unraveled?
I’ll never know for certain. But I do know this: We couldn’t make Joe heal. We couldn’t love him into connection. What we could do was offer safety, structure, and consistency, over and over again. But it was too late for us to find out what may have been. His disorder had taken such a hold on Joe and our family that he couldn't safely live with us by a certain point.
Healing from reactive attachment disorder doesn’t happen because a parent wants it badly enough. It happens only when the child is capable, ready, and chooses to engage in that process. That truth is painful — but it’s also freeing. Because it reminds us that while we cannot control the outcome, we can still create the conditions for hope. And sometimes, that has to be enough.
I share our story to help other families know what we didn’t — and to remind them that healing from reactive attachment disorder starts not just with the parents, but with a child who is willing and ready to try.
Not sure where to turn for your family living with a child impacted by childhood trauma?
You’re not alone — it's different for every family and you don’t have to figure it out on your own. Connect with RAD Advocates to find real answers from those who’ve walked this path.