Shakeup at Freddie Mac

¶ … compromised early attachment relationship becomes a risk factor in a child's development by adolescence. The writer explores the theory that it sets the teens on a course for subsequent violence including domestic violence and non-intimate violence. There were five sources used to complete this paper. In recent years the nation's attention has turned to violent behavior in teens. Adolescents have moved to the spotlight in many areas of teen development.

In recent history there have been news stories about the Columbines as well as issues such as date rape, teen relationship abuse and other examples of adolescent violence. The focus is currently on what causes the teens to become violent and attention is turning to the history of their life. Experts are examining the effect that a disruption in attachment has on the later development of the adolescents especially with regards to violence. The Developing Mind by Dan Siegel addresses the impact of attachment problems and later development issues.

According to Siegel it is even more complicated that simply attaching to teach attachment. Siegel believes that the disruption of attachment actually has a negative impact on the development of the brain and nervous system (Siegel, 2002). Siegel leads the readers on the path of bio development when it comes to the nervous system and tells the reader that emotional attachments and relationships have an impact on the biological development of the brain and thought process.

This dovetails with the idea that attachment disorders in babies and small children can lead to violent behavior by adolescents (Siegel, 2002). Attachment disorders have recently been getting a lot of media attention. The attachment disorder in a child usually presents itself in a manner that makes the child hard to love. Experts seem to agree that it becomes a vicious cycle in which the child's attachment relationship is disrupted and they in turn refuse to attach.

This happens in cases where the mother is absent, or the first primary caregiver is cold and non-responsive to the child's need's for basic human contact. There are many reasons that these relationships may be disrupted and the children often end up in foster care or being placed with adoptive families. Children who have mental disorders often have attachment disorders as well.

Sometimes it is because the family dynamic was dysfunctional from the start, while other times the child's difficulty cause the caregiver to withdraw which in turn perpetuates an attachment disorder (Red, 2002). Babies and young children with severe ADHD or other disorders can create a family dynamic where they are neglected emotionally. In most cases however the attachment disorder begins in infancy and it is through nothing that the child does but instead all about the mental problems of the parents.

Attachment disorders are currently being looked at as precursors to adolescent violence. Adolescent violence comes in many forms (Marcus, 2001). Adolescents can be violent in an overt manner such as violent bullying of peers, or even in the extreme such as a Columbine situation. Adolescents who are violent are not always in the spotlight however. Teens who beat their significant others, as well as teens who rape are considered violent teens.

It is important to pinpoint the causative or contributory factors to adolescent teens for the purpose of being able to treat it before it occurs. In one study the researchers examined the relationship a child had with his or her mother as an infant and then studied the child's later propensity for violence in society (Marcus, 2001). Reactive aggression has been defined as a defensive or retaliatory response to a perceived threat, fear, or provocation, which is accompanied by a tendency to attribute hostility to ambiguous provocation (Dodge & Coie, 1987).

The function of reactive aggression is to remove the perceived threat. Proactive aggression has been defined as unprovoked behaviors intended to harm, dominate, or coerce another person (Dodge & Coie) (Marcus, 2001). Clinical researchers have begun to find that it is valid and useful to make a dichotomy between an impulsive-reactive-hostile- affective aggression and a controlled-- proactive-instrumental-predatory aggression (Vitielo & Stoff, 1997).

Researchers also have found that physiological underarousal appears to underlie proactive aggression, whereas overarousal or physiological reactivity appears to underlie emotional or reactive aggression (Marcus, 2001)." The research concluded that children who had attachment issues with their mothers as babies, had later tendencies toward aggression both reactive and proactive. Attachment theory suggests that secure attachment is the strongest predictor of aggression and that the influence of social competence would be redundant with attachment.

But research on nonattachment- related early-childhood social development has also indicated the increasing significance of quality peer relationships for later adjustment and the increasing dependence of preschoolers on peers for social and emotional support (Marcus, 2001). Longitudinal findings have indicated that the quality of peer relationships is a better predictor of adjustment in childhood and adolescence than the early relationship with mother (Skolnick, 1986). Therefore, once attachment has yielded socially competent or incompetent behavior, both attachment and social competence might continue to contribute to aggressive behavior, or, alternately, social relationships may.