Dear New Neighbors,
I understand you have met our beautiful little girl, and met her, and met her, and met her again.
I wasn’t sure “who” would be first and it’s very hard to know how to handle this kind of situation, so this time I waited to see what would happen.
As you may know our little girl is very bright, outgoing and friendly. She has the most beautiful smile and would do just about anything you ask of her. Makala, is wonderful and full of love and wants to make others happy.
I have been Makala’s mother since she was five-years-old. Not even half of her life, so far. Before I was her mother Makala lived in Foster Care for just about a year. She was placed into foster care with her six-week-old brother after more then 13 interventions by the police and children’s services. Makala called a grocery cart her bed very often and other times was found wondering around in flop-houses or sleeping on the city bus to escape the rain with her birthmother.
When Jeremiah was born toxicology tests indicated he was drug exposed. Thankfully, his birth was the last intervention and made a difference in their lives. The state took action to protect both of them. No one could have ever understood how hurt this little girl had been by the age of four-years-old and the damage would take some time to show. Some of the abuse she suffered was only recently reported to the police after hours of therapy and a year and a half in day treatment.
We became a family in 2003 and it has been an incredible journey. We were trained, background checked and very much understood the implication of our decision to adopt children from the foster care system. We knew we would be parenting a hurt child and that it might be a long and hard journey. We didn’t expect the issues that have come to be our reality, however. Her records and reports were so short, and incomplete no one had a clue what horrible things had happened to our daughter as a very little girl.
As a result of the abuse our little girl suffered and the unhealthy attachments she had made with her birthmother, and the broken attachments with two foster families Makala has an Attachment Disorder.
Most people have never heard of attachment disorders. Makala’s diagnosis is Reactive Attachment Disorder. RAD is a rather complex and somewhat fascinating mental health issue, if you are not actually the primary caregiver for a child with RAD. Reactive is the hard part, because the person a RAD child is reactive with is usually the adoptive mother.
Our daughter is demonstrating symptoms, of RAD and she has chosen you to be important in her life. As you may have noticed she will be all over you if you pay her a bit of attention. I think for your peace and for my peace of mind we might want to talk about how to best deal with her behaviors. If you are interested I would love to talk with you more about Reactive Attachment Disorder and perhaps your understanding might be another way to help Makala heal.
Sincerely,
Anna, A RAD Mom
Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms:
A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.