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When parents when learn their child has attachment disorder they have so many questions. Does RAD go away? Does it ever get better? Do children attach? Will my child ever be “normal?”
The honest answer is maybe. Some children heal, and others do not. Some children heal part way, others do not. Part of it is the child wanting to heal, part of it is the type of parenting (I’ll explain that more) and part of it is whether or not RAD is the only issue.
I have two children. My son, Sammy, is 15. My daughter, Hannah, is 7. Sammy has partially healed, Hannah is completely healed. I parented them mostly the same, they came at roughly the same age, but Sammy has a host of mental health diagnoses that Hannah does not.
The thing both of my children have in common is that they both still have trauma triggers. There are things that will make them question their attachment and their permanency in our family. It is not always a conscious thing, but that response is still there.
Attachment parenting is very different from “normal” parenting. Our kids have trauma responses and fear that their parents will leave them on a regular basis. They need constant reassurance that we will always be there for them, no matter what. That does not mean that we let them get away with unacceptable behaviors. Our children will push us away so that they do not get hurt when we leave them, as the honestly believe we will.
One of the main differences in the parenting of my children is that I spent a lot of time on the couch with Hannah in my lap. When Sammy joined our family, I didn’t know anything about attachment disorder and had never even heard of it. I parented him at his physical age, rather than his emotional age. He needed me to hold him and cuddle him as I would have done with him when he was an infant. Emotionally he was under 2. I did do this with Hannah and she thrived because of it.
When a child attaches it may not be in the warm, fuzzy way that we envisioned when we began this journey. Your child may not hug you or tell you “I love you” or even make you smile daily. Sammy’s attachment comes in the way of knowing that we are always here for him. He has given us a lot to worry about, many headaches and we have been through numerous placements and court appearances with him. He is on his third residential placement in as many years. We have remained his parents through all of it and this is how he knows we love him. He knows that we are here when he stumbles, and he stumbles often. When something bad happens, he knows he can come to us.
Sometimes I get an honest hug or an honest “I love you” but mostly I don’t feel a lot of emotional connection. My role is more one of being his soft place to fall and being consistently here. That’s what he needs and that is as much as he can handle.
What it boils down to is that there is no easy answer as to whether or not your child can or will heal. If love were all it took, all of our children would heal completely.
We have a newly adopted daughter, originally from China until age 10, then adopted into the States and the adoption disrupted at age 12. She’s been in our home for 3 months now and we are beginning to see breaks in her walls, although we have had to force her to break down these “rules” of engagement with us. Our biggest ongoing battle is her fierce independence (no one told her what to do in the orphanage for 10 years) and her argumentative nature. It helps if I can say things such as, “Sarah, how many negative comments have you made in the last 10 seconds?” Or, “Was that kind?” “Do you want to be unkind?” and at times she can apologize. She often demonstrates regressive behavior, such as “booing” me from hiding places, wanting piggy back rides, jumping on our beds, etc., yet at the next moment wanting to drive the car in the parking lot. We are learning a lot!