Part One

One of the families leaning on ADN for support was a minister, his wife and their three children. The oldest child was scary… and not yet into double digits. I believe he was about nine, and completely conscienceless. He had been adopted very young. Being a ministerial family, they were living in a fishbowl. They were a wonderful family, devoted and dedicated to their children. But they were imploding, for good reason.

Mom called... more

I certainly have plenty to blog about today. I could start with the email from Gail, my friend of many years. Gail started the Attachment Disorder Parent Network (ADPN) which merged into ADN about 5 years ago. Gail updated me on her 27 year old, attachment-affected daughter’s progress. To say the report was NOT good would be the understatement of the century. More on this later… is it my future with Amy?

Or I could write about one of the threads on ADN’s listserves about how cops are buying runaway kids ice cream and... more

My family both disrupted a child and adopted a child who disrupted.

Before we understood anything about attachment issues, we adopted a third time… out of birth order, a teen girl who became the oldest child in our family. Of course, we were struggling mightily with Amy and Tommy at the time, but hey—aren’t good intentions enough to make it work? We didn’t know what we didn’t know… We attended a July 4th party hosted by an agency owner (same one mentioned at the end of Part 2, is that a coincidence?)... more

I mentioned in the first installment of this series how I had seen a few families who did want to “dump and run.” There was the woman I spoke to who had a gypsy daughter from Romania. I offered to have her come to my house and stay for a few days while we evaluated her daughter’s issues together. She showed up on my doorstep with her entire family in tow… husband and two birth kids, and one very squirrelly child. They didn’t pay a nickel for food or toiletries. Mom wigged out completely when the child ran off and I called the cops… so I was babysitting mom as much or more... more

OK, enough already of me whining about Amy. I very much appreciate the comments from my readers who are supportive of me during my brief, but very real, “pity party.” I don’t do pity parties very often. Never found them to be too productive in addressing whatever issue I was pitying myself for… But the final hurrah around here this summer is getting to be very, very hard.

So, on to addressing another reader question. I was asked about the practice of adopting a child who disrupted from a previous family. The reader wanted to know if families were needed for that eventuality, and if... more

I’ve about had it today with the “uninformed” folks that populate our residential treatment centers and child welfare organizations. I had several other adjectives I almost used instead of “uninformed” but decided, in the interest of not being completely inflammatory, to stick with that one.

A good friend of mine called me today in tears. She had just walked out of the case management meeting for her son who has been in a residential facility for several months. This pre-adolescent boy is aggressive, very oppositional, disrespectful, controlling... more

I had a great phone conversation this morning with Sharlene, our older child adoption blogger… we talked about her difficulties getting “the system” to understand her teenage daughter’s issues. Sharlene was telling me how many incompetent “mental health professionals” they have met along the way, including one story about a therapist who repeatedly called Sharlene by the wrong name! Sure instills confidence in a person’s ability to be effective therapeutically when she can’t even figure out the mom’s name. Forget reading the files... that would be WAY too much trouble.... ... more

Now that the wedding is behind us, and the ADN conference is upon us, I am regrouping and focusing on something besides flower girl dresses and wedding videos. For instance, I am focusing on the local family who is being prosecuted solely based on the statements of a pair of very disturbed kids. I am focusing on completing the ADN conference program for what promises to be an absolutely amazing line-up of parents and professionals dealing with attachment and related issues.... more

Although I already believed in the commonalities of animal and child abuse, my views were readily echoed by the people I met yesterday at the Pet Expo here in Kansas City.

Over and over through the years as I have learned more about attachment issues and Reactive Attachment Disorder, I have heard it said there are three behaviors often noted in the history of sociopaths… fire setting, bedwetting and animal cruelty. A quick Google search results in many articles and links supporting this correlation, such as this page about “... more

Yesterday Beth and I spent the day at the KC Pet Expo. There were exhibitor booths displaying all kinds of things related to pets. We returned home with numerous free dog treats, Frisbees, balls and toys, dental products and breed-related items. I shopped for Rottie and Border collie stuff all day!

We also watched several demonstrations, including Flyball (boy, would Reilly... more