Resources

A friend of mine recently admitted she felt like a failure because her little RADish didn’t seem to be making much progress and it was having an effect on her family, her marriage, and herself.  She was struggling to remain loving and supportive because her RADish was taking everything she had to give. Being the mother of a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder is beyond exhausting.  I would say being a parent in itself is a tiring job, but when the complexities of an emotionally damaged child is added in, exhaustion doesn’t go far enough to describe how you feel at the end of the day. Nancy Thomas wrote a book about RAD called When Love is Not Enough.  This was the first book… [more]

“99 Ways to Drive Your Child Sane” by Brita St.Clair is one of my favorite parenting books for kids with attachment issues. If you’re living with a child with attachment issues you will understand when I say that there are days when you just want to scream or pull your hair out. You are not sure if your child is insane, if you are, or both. You think there is no way you are going to make it through the day. You have had all you can take of the lying, stealing, destruction, food hoarding, or all of the above. 99 Ways takes a humorous look at a way to change things up and make you laugh, make your child laugh, or both… [more]

When I first read this book, I felt that Nancy had been watching my family through a hidden camera and then wrote about it. It was the first book I was given on attachment disorder and it was the first time that I felt that I was not insane and that there was hope for my son. The sense of relief was overwhelming. If you’re not familiar with Nancy Thomas,she is not a therapist, but is a mom who has lived with several severely emotionally disturbed children. She has lived our life. One criticism of Nancy’s book is that it seems very regimented, bordering on abusive. This can be true because the book does not convey Nancy’s personality, love of children and fun… [more]

I didn’t get this written in a very timely fashion today because I spent most of the morning on the telephone. For 90 minutes I spoke with Andrew Bridge, author of Hope’s Boy. Before making my next telephone appointment, I paid the guy who brought me more firewood and dealt with the fitness tech who (partially) repaired our treadmill. (It doesn’t elevate now … oh darn. I never liked that anyway!) My next phone call was with Jeff Katz, the driving force behind Listening to Parents—a nationwide effort to improve communication between foster and adoptive parents and the child welfare system. I thoroughly enjoyed both conversations and I look forward to future communications with these two gentlemen. Andrew begins a book tour shortly. I took… [more]

In this blog, I wrote about Andrew Bridge, a former foster child who became an attorney and now advocates on behalf of foster children and kids in the system. Andrew has made it his mission to address the deficiencies in how America approaches its troubled children—a passion I share. I indicated in my previous blog that I was looking for him; therefore, I was pleased to receive an email from him a couple of days ago. Apparently, he reads the blog! (In my Googling to find contact info for him, the website for his book never appeared; it had all the info I needed, including a direct email address. Go figure!) His book, Hope’s Boy, will be released in early February. He is sending me… [more]

Continuing with my interview with Mike O’Connor, author of Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run., my next question was: How do you relate trust and love? How does lack of trust affect a loving relationship? For me personally, it would kill it. Some relationships are built on lack of trust. For a proper relationship, you have to be able to trust the person completely. I think my parents loved me and I loved them, but I couldn’t trust them. It drove me away from them. When I was a smaller child and dependent on them, I was frustrated by the inconsistencies, but when I was 16, I… [more]

I mentioned in this post how I managed to find a few hours one weekend to read a book. The book I read was Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run. I blogged about it shortly after I finished reading it. Imagine my surprise to receive an email from the author, Mike O’Connor, a couple of days later! He had stumbled upon my blog and read my review. He stated that he was “impressed by the wisdom and depth of (my) reflections on the book.” It is certainly true that living day in and day out with trust issues can provide more depth than any of us would prefer! I thought it… [more]

I don’t have much time to read—Reader’s Digest and the highly accurate and sophisticated People magazine are about my speed. Short bytes in short time frames. It was in People magazine that I read a book review about Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run. The write-up sounded interesting, so I went online to my local library and queued up to get the book. Apparently others thought it sounded interesting as well, because it took over a month for it to become available. It is the personal story of Mike O’Connor, a highly acclaimed investigative reporter and war correspondent. During his entire childhood, his parents were running from some secret that was never divulged to him or… [more]

As you are reading this, I will be on the road heading to a resort in Osage Beach, Missouri, in the Lake of the Ozarks region. Today is the beginning of a conference of the Missouri Coalition of Children’s Agencies. According to their website, they are: … the premiere membership coalition who represents abused and neglected children and the people who care for those children. The coalition advances excellence in child welfare practice. This is a different type of exhibiting opportunity. For two hours tomorrow night, all conference attendees will be encouraged to tour all the exhibits. Apparently, prizes are awarded for documenting that all tables were visited! I am most interested in seeing how the Attachment & Trauma Network information is received… [more]

One of the many good friends I connected with at the ATTACh conference was Pat Johnston, writer of many thought-provoking and insightful comments on this blog. Pat and I continued our conversation about Amy and my recent involvement in the latest chapter of Amy’s life. Pat gave me a big hug which is always a welcomed and welcoming greeting. She made it clear her concern centered on me and how much exhaustion she heard in what I was writing. She said she knows me well enough to be able to translate my words into my voice and “see” me saying it, and she could hear just how maxxed out and tired I was. As unfortunate as her message was, the fact that she knew… [more]