The sad part about watching a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder live life is knowing that things are not as bad as the child seems to respond. I’m sure that all children are different and children with RAD are not all the same, but some of these behaviors are considered classic. It seems that a child with RAD is simply unable to just be happy and trust that life will be fine.
It’s as if there is always some quest for something, anything and especially whatever has been controlled or limited. Tell my daughter that in our house we don’t use catsup on our salad and she would learn to love her salad just exactly that way. It’s unbelievable and if it wasn’t so funny sometimes it would be heartbreaking.
One common behavior children with RAD seem to have is rages. They look a little bit like tantrums however, they cross the line way too often. Rages can last hours and be intense parents who are adopting a child with reactive attachment disorder are often not ready for 5 and 6 hour long raging tantrums.
Some people suggest that a child with RAD needs to push the new parents to the absolute end of their ropes and to the maddest spot they can get. The theory is the child needs to see us at our most angry spot and what we do when we get there. Will we still love them when we see how rotten they really are?
I don’t think most parents are ready to love a child who cannot trust, and I think it is an amazingly scary journey. The hard part about adopting a child who remembers her past life and has reactive attachment disorder is teaching her that it’s okay to trust herself and us.
Setting boundaries seems to be one of our battle grounds. The strange thing is that with our little girl I have been very good about consistency and setting boundaries. She has never had a tantrum or rage that resulted in her getting what she wanted. We are in the fourth year of her trying.
Last weekend we tried something new, just to spice things up. I have had advice the best way to parent a child with RAD is to have consistent expectations with natural consequences. It has been fun to mix things up now and then and that’s what happened to our little girl last week. The moment she started to pout, or complain, or tantrum we gave her what she wanted, only she didn’t always really want what she was fussing about.
She ended up not “having to go with daddy” She started to tantrum about not wanting to go so we quickly said, “Okay you don’t have to go.” of course, then she wanted to go but we had to point out that she had a tantrum about it and got what she wanted! At the store she was asking for everything as usual. She ended up with Broccoli and some strange baby toy she didn’t really want in the first place.
It was a funny day for us. As things worked out our daughter did learn a few things and hopefully she learned to be careful what she wishes for, because she might just get it.
I wonder if you have to be a parent of a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder to get the irony in this Blog.
Related Articles:
- A Letter to Our New Neighbors, About Our RAD Daughter.
- The Diagnostic Criteria For Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)
- The Symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder
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.