Anxious Attachment in Teens: Signs and Ways of Coping With Teen Anxious Attachment
If you ever feel like you care too much in relationships, or constantly worry that someone you care about might leave you, it could be a sign of teenage attachment anxiety. Anxious attachment in teens is more common than you think, and can make relationships, including friendships and dating, highly stressful.
Anxiety in teen relationships can show up as needing constant reassurance, feeling sensitive to changes in someone else’s mood, or panicking if you don’t get quick replies to messages. Sound familiar? If so, don’t worry, you’re not alone in this – and there’s nothing “wrong” with you. These feelings might be coming from anxious attachment, and understanding it is the first step toward feeling better.
If you or a loved one is worried about how an attachment style might be affecting your well-being, a mental health professional can help. This article can also help you better understand anxious attachment in teens by covering:
- What anxious attachment in teens is
- How teenage attachment anxiety can show up
- The impact of anxious attachment on a teenager’s life
- The causes of teen anxious attachment
- Tips for coping with teen anxious attachment
- How to support a teen with anxious attachment
- Teen attachment anxiety treatment options
- Where to find professional support
What Is Anxious Attachment in Teens?
Anxious attachment in teens can affect their ability to establish and maintain healthy, mutually fulfilling relationships. But the impact of teen anxious attachment doesn’t stop there; it can also negatively influence self-esteem, mental health, and academic performance. But before we dive into what anxious attachment in teens is, it’s essential to have some background info on attachment theory.
What Is Attachment Theory?
Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby, a psychoanalyst and psychologist, in the 1950s. It’s a way to explain how people form emotional connections with each other based on their early bonds with primary caregivers. In a nutshell, Bowlby believed these early relationships created a blueprint or template for how relationships, in general, work – influencing how we relate to others as we grow older.1
The attachment styles came from research carried out by Mary Ainsworth in her experiment, the “Strange Situation.”2 These styles were known as secure, insecure-anxious, and insecure-avoidant attachments. Another insecure style was added later: disorganized attachment. We all fit into one of these categories or styles based on how our needs were responded to as children.
How Anxious Attachment Develops in Childhood
When a baby is distressed or unsure of a situation, they are innately driven to reach out to their parents or caregivers for reassurance. As they cannot communicate their needs verbally, they signal through crying, following, or clinging to their caregivers to increase their feelings of safety. How the caregivers respond to their baby’s cues shapes the emotional connection and the basis of their child’s future attachments in relationships.1
An anxious attachment style may develop if a baby’s cues, such as crying or reaching out for reassurance, aren’t consistently responded to. For example, the parent may sometimes attend to the baby’s needs sensitively, and at other times may not. As a result, the child might become uncertain if they will get the things they need, so they seek as much reassurance and closeness from their caregiver as possible.
While a child with anxious attachment might search for needs to be met through proximity seeking and outward displays of emotions, like tantrums, anxious attachment in teens can look different. The next section discusses the signs of teen anxious attachment.
How Anxious Attachment Shows in Teens
Insecure anxious teen relationships can look like one person being “needy” or having a less trusting nature toward others. It can come across or be referred to as a “teen clingy attachment style,” but their search for closeness goes much deeper than clinginess. They’re looking for reassurance that their friends or partners won’t leave them, or that they are safe in their relationships.
Some of the key anxious attachment teen signs include:3
- Needing constant closeness, such as over-texting
- A frequent need for reassurance
- Being “clingy”
- Fear of abandonment
- Extra-sensitivity to rejection or mood changes in others
- Emotional sensitivity and outbursts
- Jealousy
- Struggles with trusting people
- Difficulty setting or respecting boundaries
- Negative self-view
- Feeling unworthy of love
- Rumination and over-analyzing
Impact of Anxious Attachment on Teen Life
Although it’s in connections with others that the signs of anxious attachment typically show up, this attachment style can affect a teenager’s life in a variety of ways. Let’s look at some of the ways that an anxious attachment style can impact a teen’s life.
Teens with anxious attachment may struggle when established emotional routines are changed, such as when relationships, friendships, or family connections break or drift apart. This is especially true with teenage emotional dependency, where there’s a heavy reliance on others for fulfilling emotional needs.
Teens with anxious attachment are also more likely to struggle when beginning new relationships, fearing rejection and being unsure whether they can trust others. They might seek quick emotional closeness in new connections with new friends or romantic partners, but soon start to look for validation and reassurance. Once they are emotionally invested, the fear of losing someone important to them is very real. As a result, relationship breakups can feel overwhelming and all-consuming. As much as they want to be close to others, they are equally afraid that the other person won’t want to be with them.
It’s not just relationships that teens with anxious attachments can find difficult. Their self-esteem tends to be low, causing them to look to others for confirmation that they are “worthy.”4 As the name suggests, teens with this attachment style may also experience intense anxiety and struggle to regulate their emotions. Because they have a low self-view, but a high view of others, they may develop “people pleasing” traits – going out of their way to prioritize their friend’s or partner’s needs before their own.5
Additionally, feeling consumed and distracted by their self-worth and teen fear of abandonment, teens with anxious attachment may struggle to focus on schoolwork, affecting their grades.
What Causes Anxious Attachment in Teens?
Although an anxious attachment style can develop at any point in life, it’s typically rooted in the formative childhood years (eighteen months to two years of age). There are many factors during this period that could cause an anxious attachment to develop, including:1-7
- Inconsistent parenting styles
- Trauma, such as accidents or illnesses
- High-stress environments
- Premature birth
- Separation, for instance, due to being in foster care
- Parental mental health issues
- Physical or emotional abuse or neglect
- Inconsistency in caregivers, for example, having many different nannies or au pairs
- Genetic components, for example, variations in the oxytocin receptor gene, can affect bonding behaviors and trust
Each of these factors can lead to inconsistent caregiving, which can rupture the emotional bonds between the caregiver and the child.
There’s also a concept called “transgenerational attachment,” which explains how patterns of connection, such as how we show love, manage emotions, and handle conflict, can be passed down through families. This comes down to a phenomenon called “epigenetics,” which demonstrates how our genes can physically change in response to our environments.
So, sometimes, even with the best will in the world, insecure attachments can still happen. There’s no blame being laid at anyone’s door. Understanding how our experiences – and those of our family – shape us can help us to learn and grow. We can develop a more secure attachment template at any stage of life.
Coping With Teen Anxious Attachment: Tips for Teens
Did you know there are things you can do to help yourself without necessarily needing treatment? If you’re looking for help for anxious teens, you’ve come to the right place. The following strategies can work to make you feel less anxious, more self-confident, and help you understand yourself better.
Learn About Your Attachment Style
One of the best ways to understand patterns in thoughts, self-beliefs, and relationships is to learn about why they exist in the first place. Once more of an understanding is reached, you can become more self-compassionate and actively make changes to thoughts and behaviors.
Journaling
Journaling is a good way to release emotions and thoughts onto a page, rather than keeping them stuck in your head. If you write in your journal regularly, over time, you’re sure to see some patterns cropping up in your thoughts and behaviors. This awareness is what can lead to change.
Target Self-Talk
The way we speak to ourselves can lead to a negativity spiral and worsen self-beliefs. Targeting your self-talk involves noticing when negative thoughts pop up and replacing them with positive and reassuring statements. For example, instead of thinking, This person will leave me, you could reframe it as, I am worthy of love, and I can handle any challenges that come along. It also helps to provide evidence to back up your replacement thought.
Grounding Exercises
When you start to feel anxious or notice your thoughts spiraling, grounding techniques can bring you back to a calmer state. You could try a breathing exercise, meditation, or use grounding objects to help you feel more balanced. Check out our page on grounding exercises for more ideas.
Building Emotional Regulation Skills
Recognizing your feelings and where they come from is a big part of managing your emotions in healthy ways. You could begin by learning how to identify what you feel, such as by tracking your emotions and using tools like an emotions wheel to describe them. You could then find ways to communicate clearly and honestly how you feel and what you need. Understanding boundaries, both your own and others, can bring you clarity and reduce anxiety.
Supporting Teens With Anxious Attachment: Tips for Parents
If you want to support your teen but aren’t sure what to do, don’t worry – we have you covered. The following are tips for creating a stronger bond with and helping your teen.
Create a Secure Base
Introducing predictable routines and ensuring that the home is a safe place can help teens feel more secure and less anxious. As mentioned earlier, anxiously attached teens often fear rejection, so if you have a disagreement or conflict with them, reconnecting with them soon after can help them feel supported. Be consistently emotionally present for your teen, and ensure that boundaries are in place, understood, and enforced to help your teen feel more secure.
Encourage Open Communication
Listen to your teen’s feelings without judgment when they want to share them, even if it feels challenging. Show that you are interested in what they are saying, and validate their feelings. Even if you don’t agree with them, their feelings are real.
Teach Healthy Skills
Be a good role model for your teen by using healthy coping strategies to deal with stress, conflict, and intense emotions when they arise. Teach them about having healthy boundaries, and model these around them.
Build Self-Esteem
Self-esteem can be low in teens with anxious attachments, so support them in building themselves up. Help them discover their positive qualities and celebrate achievements, no matter how big or small.
Seek Professional Support
Sometimes, we all need a little extra help. Anxious attachment teen support is available, and we shall explore options for treatment in the next section.
Treatment Options: Therapy and Support for Anxiously Attached Teens
If you think your teen has an anxious attachment issue, professional support and treatment are available. The main treatment is talking therapy, which can be one-to-one, family therapy, or a combination of both approaches.
Individual Therapy
Individual therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), can be highly effective for treating anxiety in teens. CBT is a structured approach. First, it helps a teen to recognize any unhelpful thoughts or behaviors they have. Next, it allows them to begin challenging these negative thoughts and replace them with healthier, more realistic ones. Finally, they can learn new ways of coping with stress, anxiety, and intense emotions, and how to practice these coping techniques in “real life” between sessions.
The whole CBT process allows teens to understand themselves better and to think and respond to situations, rather than just reacting to them. As a result, they can come out equipped with healthy coping mechanisms that they can take with them through life.
Attachment-Based Family Therapy
Attachment-based family therapy is a structured type of family counseling. It’s backed up by evidence and uses attachment theory to guide trustworthy connections in the family. During sessions, family events and relationships are often explored to rebuild the bonds and trust between family members. Open communication is encouraged, and sessions provide a safe space to address concerns. These processes work to heal attachment issues from early childhood and help teens move forward with healthier connections.
Teen Attachment Anxiety Resources: Self-Help Books
If your child is struggling with insecure anxious teen relationships, it can be tough to know where to start with support. Although therapy is the best route to healing, a self-directed approach can bridge the gap. Three great books for anxiously attached teens are:
- Just As You Are: A Teen’s Guide to Self-Acceptance and Lasting Self-Esteem, by Dr Michelle Skeen and Kelly Skeen. A fun, practical guide to silencing your inner critic, cultivating self-compassion, and discovering your uniqueness.
- The Book Every Teen Should Read, by Nicole Gonzalez. This book shares strategies on how to discover your self-worth, positive mindset, and personal values, allowing you to grow into your best self.
- The Socially Confident Teen: An Attachment Theory Workbook to Help You Feel Good About Yourself and Connect with Others, by Christina Reese. A how-to guide for developing a complete set of social skills, including creating healthy connections and learning how to repair them when something goes wrong.
Finding Anxious Attachment Support with Mission Prep
The type of attachment formed in childhood doesn’t have to dictate the connections a teen has for the rest of their life. If you think your teen may be struggling with trust issues, self-esteem, or connecting with people, know that help is available.
At Mission Prep, we specialize in working with teenagers. Our mental health experts can give your child the support they need to prosper and grow, allowing them to feel safe and secure in treatment.
We know that mental health treatment isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. That’s why we offer a range of services, including CBT and family therapy, to allow your teen to recover and continue developing into their best self. Reach out to us today to discover more about how we can help your teen develop more secure, trusting connections and self-worth.
References
- McGarvie, S., PhD. (2025, March 27). Attachment Theory, Bowlby’s Stages & Attachment Styles. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/attachment-theory/
- Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41(1), 49–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/1127388
- Guy-Evans, O. (2024, March 6). Anxious attachment style. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/anxious-attachment-style.html
- WebMD. (2024, July 17). Anxious attachment: What it is and how it affects relationships. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-anxious-attachment
- Cleveland Clinic. (2025, June 17). What is anxious attachment style — and do you have it? https://health.clevelandclinic.org/anxious-attachment-style
- Robinson, L., Segal, J., & Jaffe, J. (2025, March 13). Attachment styles and how they affect adult relationships. HelpGuide.org. https://www.helpguide.org/relationships/social-connection/attachment-and-adult-relationships
- Chen, F. S., Barth, M. E., Johnson, S. L., Gotlib, I. H., & Johnson, S. C. (2011). Oxytocin receptor (OXTR) polymorphisms and attachment in human infants. Frontiers in Psychology, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00200
