Attachment Therapy

…Buy yourself a cupcake. The start of this New Year has not been an easy one around our house.  With two daughters in full-blown RAD mode, our family life has not been chaos-free. One prevalent behavior of Reactive Attachment Disorder is lying.  All children fib and stretch the truth, but children suffering from RAD have perfected the art of lying to such a level, the lies should be hanging in a museum. Elle, my 13 year old RADish, is so proficient at lying I’m not sure she knows how to tell the truth.  The hard part about the lying is you know they are doing it because your built-in lie detector is flashing red.  But how are you going to prove it?  Should you try? … [more]

I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s.  I am not a night person, so staying up until midnight to drink champagne or to kiss has never been a favorite activity of mine.  However, if New Year’s was celebrated at 6:00a, then I’m your gal.  Maybe I should start celebrating New Year’s on Australian time! The start of a new year has always been more of a time of reflection for me.  I don’t make resolutions for the coming year because I know by February I won’t be able to remember what my New Year’s resolutions were.  Plus, I am so exhausted from the Holidays that it takes me until February to get my head around resolutions. This year, I’ve spent a fair… [more]

Emotions and feelings shouldn’t be a hard thing, although ask any man in an all-female household and he will tell you he is screwed when it comes to feelings and emotions. My husband once questioned our six-year-old daughter, Bunny, about the outfit she chose to wear for picture day.  His question was less about what he asked and more about how he asked the question.  Bunny took immediate offense to his question and burst into tears. Oh, brother! But, as much as Bunny has no problem expressing some emotions, others are locked deep inside her. Bunny has Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), and as I’ve written before, RAD is a disorder of relationships.  At some point during Bunny’s development, a trauma occurred.  Her particular trauma came from… [more]

Radishes really can’t hug, but then neither can RADishes. Reactive Attachment Disorder is a disorder of relationships, so it isn’t surprising that children with RAD aren’t warm and fuzzy huggers.  I never really noticed this with my daughters.  I am a hugger, so I was always hugging them.  I didn’t realize they weren’t hugging back.  Especially Elle. There are all kinds of hugs, hugs between married couples, hugs between best girlfriends, hugs between work colleagues, and the air kiss hugs between the Real Housewives of New York. When we first started RAD therapy, we learned that Elle really wasn’t hugging us.  It was sort of hugging, but it never reached the level of a loving exchange, and we always initiated it. Elle would lead with her… [more]

You can never truly understand a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes.  I don’t know what it’s like to be adopted, or to be given up at birth, and I don’t know what it’s like to have reactive attachment disorder (RAD). I know what it’s like to be an adoptive parent, and I know what it’s like to be a parent of a child with RAD, but I don’t understand what goes on in her head when she is raging out of control. I take Bunny to therapy once a week, I’ve taken Elle to RAD camp, and I am an AWESOME RAD mom, but as much as I say the right things and parent in a strong and… [more]

We have been experiencing hard times in our house lately.  Bunny has been struggling with the anger of RAD, and we have been trying to manage her rage.  Sometimes, being the parent of a child with reactive attachment disorder just becomes too difficult, and the entire family needs a break. This is when respite care plays a role. As much as grandparents want to help and think they understand, they really don't get it.  They try to apply the same parenting principles they used as parents, but we didn't have RAD, and spanking and yelling just doesn't work. So, when grandparents aren't really an option for a family break, where else do you turn? We've only had to use respite care once, a year ago, when… [more]

As an adoptive mother, I have always walked a fine line when discussing my daughter's birthmothers.  Both girls were given up for adoption at birth, by teenage mothers.  Elle was a first child, and Bunny has a sister that is two years older. Coming from Russia and Guatemala, it is a fair assumption that poverty was the main reason both girls were given up for adoption. As the girl's forever mom, I have tried to be ready to answer any questions the girls might have regarding their births and adoptions.  I hold nothing but gratitude to both women, because it was their ultimate sacrifice that provided me with children.  I never fail to recognize them on the… [more]

"It is so hard to watch all of the "normal" families." " I Hate when everyone always stares at us." " I had no idea how horrible this would be." "Why is she trying to ruin our family." "It know it is not his fault but..."These are all comments that I hear daily from parents who are struggling to survive life with a RAD child. I know that it feels like you are being punished, I know that there is guilt about regretting your decision to parent a child with RAD. The most important thing to realize is that all of these thoughts and feelings are normal. RAD is an unfair sentence that is given to the most helpless children. These are the… [more]

RAD comes in many shapes and sizes, and is different in every child.  For example, our 12 year old, Elle, has never been good at identifying her emotions, how to describe them, nor how to communicate them.  On the other hand, our 6 year old, Bunny, has had no trouble identifying her emotions, she just has a problem controlling them. Every therapist we’ve had has always had a chart of emotions on their walls.  You know, the chart of cartoon characters making faces like angry, happiness, and horror.  These charts are used to help children identify their emotions visually.  Our current therapist has gone through a list of the most common emotions and had both girls explain the definition of each one. Through our… [more]

We had Bunny in therapy last Friday and we were discussing her recent round of temper tantrums and struggles for control.  Lately, she has been sneaking out of the house and not telling anyone where she is going or what she is doing.  On 20 acres of pasture and woodland, a little six year old is likely to get into a lot of trouble, so you see why we’ve been getting upset. Especially now that the coyotes have had their spring pups, and we have killed two copperhead snakes in the last two weeks.  We don’t worry so much about Elle, because she always has her dog as her constant companion and she wears a pair of leather cowboy boots to protect her… [more]