I’m becoming accustomed to being ridiculed for advocating a different approach. I suspect when Nancy first started speaking about RAD she also was ridiculed for her viewpoint. That’s OK. I’m passionate about healing these kids. I’ve found an alternative way that WORKS for my kids and for other kids I know. And yet here on a blog where Nancy constantly preaches that we should support each other, I get told that I don’t get it, that I haven’t walked in your shoes, etc., because I don’t agree that there’s only one way. There’s blinders on. Rarely, is there one way to skin a cat. And yet here, that’s exactly the message.

It’s OK. I have tough skin. I’m not going anywhere. You can read in the comments that there’s people reading this blog that are turned off by how Nancy and others speak of and treat their children who will know that there are other ways. And that’s a good thing. If the blog itself is not balanced and does not support an exploration of all the latest research and methods, perhaps the comments will provide a little glimpse of it.

Lucy

CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL…POWER, POWER, POWER…SAME OLD PROBLEMS FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS THAT DON’T GET ANY BETTER.

It’s hard, I know, but it’s so worth it. Open up your eyes! Open up your hearts!

Typical or not, kids like ours need an enviroment of safety, stability and consistancy. Sometimes that comes from doing stinky chores, or eating simple food.

This is an in the trenches type of parenting I could not have conceived of. And yes, plenty of people judge us and talk about us behind our backs now. Armchair experts who have never lived with the types of concerns we live with. They see us as overly protective, structured, and strict. Probably as unduly harsh as well. Of course they do not see the endless conversations that take place behind closed doors. Or the hugs, or the hundreds of times a child is forgiven and given the chance to begin again.

Ironically these are the same folks that would not cut this child any slack, as time wore on and they began to experience some of the behaviors. Like a teacher that snuggles my child and buys into their pity party ….UNTIL this child lies to them repeatedly, and they begin to regard them as a “little sneak”. You see, the world really does NOT love them the way we do as parents. They are not even willing to forgive them again and again NOW, while they are children, and give them a clean slate to try again. So how much more cold will their world be when they are adults enmeshed in these behaviors?

Besides, how many times have we gone back and thanked our parents for making life easy for us? For failing to hold us to a higher standard? But my adult children have come to me later and thanked me for making life tough for them. Even our adopted children begin to drop bits of this into their conversations…like, remember when I used to do this, or how it made me so mad when you made us do this? Of course this is said with a smile and a giggle, because they realize how they were fighting for trash at the time…the right of a smart kid to make dumb choices.

I think some of the reactions you might be getting is the language that you use in your blog. It’s the nine-year-old’s job to “give back,” to “let go of her mother” and decide to be part of your family and love the ones she’s with, etc. She wants to “jump into Beth’s life” without “doing the work.” She’s a child, you’re the adults. Are you working as hard on your relationship with her as she’s supposed to be working on her relationship with you? What exactly is it she wants that your older girl has and how are you responding to that? If you’re giving her boots and sweaters for Christmas while she’s watching Beth open up toy after toy after toy or if she sees you doing fun stuff with Beth while she’s being sent to work out in the barn, I can see how that might breed some resentment, even if she’s been a pill to everyone. I don’t know that that’s what you’re doing or how you actually interact with her, based on your blog. I’m not saying that she shouldn’t be held accountable for bad behavior. It’s really impossible to gauge a situation based on a blog that doesn’t give the whole story or a real picture of all the emotions involved. But yeah, I do feel sorry for your foster daughter — not that I’d let her get away with being nasty and bad-tempered or avoid doing a reasonable share of the chores, either — given what I’ve read.

I continue to be amazed at the risks you are taking in educating and helping those with RAD kids. It is very difficult to articulate that the things that you are doing can be done with love and compassion. We are doing something similar with our son. I, however, don’t EVEN attempt to explain it to people and live a rather cloistered life. We did the same with his sister whom we adopted at the same time and she is blossoming into a beautiful young lady full of vim and vigor.

How do explain the “unmanageable” child to someone who sees that the behaviours look so like their 13 year old? They just don’t understand THE PLACE these behaviours are coming from. So I don’t attempt to explain and smile warmly and am vague and make sure that my son is close to me and not without my husband or myself. How do I explain that he shoved a pencil down a child’s throat for no apparent reason? How do I explain the sexualized behaviours that, thankfully, only we have seen and no one else has because we have kept him close.

Sadly, I believe, most of the nay-sayers want to believe that some of Dr. Post’s and others methods will work on the kids having difficulty. Some might, but some don’t.

sigh. Again, I applaud you for your efforts both to encourage those of us in the trenches and risk all the haranguing. I am tired just reading it.

patricia

You’re absolutely right. Nobody is saying otherwise though you all are really stuck on that. That’s your fear talking. But again, there are other approaches that work and they also prepare our children for the real world. Just in a different way.

Nancy is a parent and I absolutely respect her right to parent her children as she sees fit as long as she is not abusive. (And giving reasonable chores to children is not abusive–never said it was.) But it is a parenting style based on fear and high control and it’s not how I prefer to do it–also my choice and my prerogative. Nancy also chooses to write about it in a public forum where others are reading and learning. As long as there’s a comment section provided, readers have the right to question her, state their opinions and make suggestions. And she doesn’t have to listen. She doesn’t even have to defend.

I think back to Amy’s comment on the long ride to one of her final therapy sessions. She said something along the lines of she knew what she had to do, she just didn’t want to do it. It struck me earlier this evening thinking about Dora that Nancy was talking to Amy’s brain, too, not her heart. Perhaps if the message had reached deeper into her heart, things would be different today. Then again, perhaps not.